


Side Effects May Include...

by thegraytigress



Series: The Sexy Misadventures of Agents Romanoff and Rogers [6]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, BAMF Natasha Romanov, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Natasha Romanov Feels, Natasha Romanov Needs a Hug, Protective Steve Rogers, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-02
Updated: 2016-05-02
Packaged: 2018-06-05 22:05:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 42,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6725329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegraytigress/pseuds/thegraytigress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's taught him everything.  All the things he's missed.  How to live and thrive in the future.  How to be a SHIELD agent and a black ops soldier.  How to be her lover.  She's taught him everything, and everything is perfect.  But all it takes is a little white lie and Natasha descends down a crazy spiral of self-doubt, worry, and misery, all leading to one inevitable question: does Steve even need her anymore?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Side Effects May Include...

**Author's Note:**

> **DISCLAIMER:** _Captain America: The Winter Soldier_ and _The Avengers_ are the properties of Walt Disney Studios, Paramount Studios, and Marvel Studios. This work was created purely for enjoyment. No money was made, and no infringement was intended.
> 
>  **RATING:** E (for language, violence, adult situations, strong sexual content)
> 
>  **AUTHOR'S NOTE:** Hi, all! I've noticed a trend with this series that the stories keep getting longer (I mean, look at this monstrosity - holy crap) and smuttier (... yeah, I make no excuses). I'm not tagging the smut because, despite my best efforts, this really isn't PWP, so if you're looking for that, there's probably too much story here for your liking. But I'll make a little note here for anyone who wants to avoid it: there's some light bondage, definitely a whole lot of teasing and edging, probably some light dominant/submissive kind of stuff? What the heck is the matter with me? I don't know myself anymore :-P. And warnings for Rumlow being a complete asshole.
> 
> Thanks to korvik93 for beta-ing this thing and very helpfully brainstorming with me, and extra special thanks to faith2nyc for helping me tremendously with, well, _everything_. Love you, darling! Enjoy!

Sex with Steve was amazing.

_Amazing._

Although, to be fair, it hadn’t always been.

Natasha winced at the thought and immediately backtracked.  That wasn’t right, either, _or_ fair because sex with Steve had always been amazing because, well, it was _Steve_.  Steve’s hands and Steve’s lips and Steve’s incredible body and Steve’s perfect heart.  Everything Steve had whole-heartedly given her.  Their first time and every time since had been perfect, even when it hadn’t been because Steve had come into their relationship as virginal as virginal could be.  He’d been one ill-fated kiss away from “never been kissed”, so he’d had no idea what to do that night where he’d told her he loved her and she’d told him the same and they’d fallen into bed together (an event which had started and ended in record time).  Since then, she’d taught him everything he knew, her body, his, what _he_ liked, how to make _her_ purr and whine and scream.  How to tease, and when to be relentless about it and when not to.  How to fuck fast and dirty or make love slowly and tenderly or do both in dizzying combinations that took her apart until she couldn’t stand it anymore.  How to bring them both to the very apex of satisfaction.  She knew it all thanks to the life she’d led before meeting him, so she was a good teacher and he was a fast learner.

So short and unfulfilling sex had quickly become mind-blowing, earth-shattering, _unbelievably amazing_ sex.

Which was what they were having now.  It was really shocking she was capable of thinking this much, given just how deep he was inside her, how hard his fingers were pressing into her hips as he guided her atop him, how wet and hot his mouth was over one of her nipples as he pinched and plucked and sweetly tortured the other.  It was difficult to remember a time now that he hadn’t known what to do, where she’d had to show him how to make her body sing beneath his hands and teeth and lips and tongue.  A particularly hard thrust up of his hips had her seeing stars, and she was just a little smug as she moaned and then giggled into his hair, just a little damn _pleased_ with herself that she’d made him _so good at this_ and he was _all hers._

He heard her laugh, and it was like a challenge to him.  Suddenly his arm was around her, trapping her so she couldn’t get away, and his free hand was darting from her breast to between her legs.  Natasha squeaked and whined and shook her head in a half-hearted protest because she was already so oversensitive from coming before (how many times?  Three?  She honestly couldn’t quite remember).  He didn’t care, pressing his thumb right into the folds of her sex, right _there_ , and she keened.  “Can’t,” she whimpered into his forehead.  “Steve, I can’t!  I can’t, can’t, _can’t…_ ”

He didn’t care, didn’t even answer besides stroking that bundle of nerves lightly, teasingly compared to how fast and hard he was pushing inside her now.  Natasha scrabbled simply to hang on, the little tingle of discomfort quickly melting into pleasure as he pressed more firmly.  Once upon a time (a half an hour, maybe, and a few orgasms ago), she’d been calling the shots.  She’d been the one to get him off first, deft with her fingers and tongue on his body.  She’d been the one to coax him back to hardness, although it hadn’t taken much what with him always eager to reciprocate like the thought of her pleasuring him without him returning the favor was physically uncomfortable.  And she had to say she liked being pinned under him, just a bit helpless when he held her wrists down with one hand alone while the other slipped between her legs where those long, artist’s fingers surged inside her and touched all the places that drove her quickly to bliss.  At any rate, she’d been the one to straddle his lap after that, the one to grab him and guide him inside ( _where he belonged_ ).  She’d been the one to control the pace, finding her own rhythm, dictating what pleasure he got and when.  She’d been the one who’d had _all_ the power.

But that hadn’t lasted.  He’d flipped them sometime during all that and pinned her again under his greater weight and boundless strength and summarily brought her to another orgasm, this one fast and sudden and knocking her way off her game.  Then he’d pulled out, ignoring his erection completely to push her hips into the bed and delve in between her legs with his mouth.  He’d taken his time, ever mindful of her comfort, tender and slow with overstimulated nerves and flesh.  That had turned to delicious torture that had left her limp and quivering and whimpering.  He’d coaxed her back to the crest, coaxed her there with long licks and his fingers reaching inside and touching her until she was begging.  God, she’d taught him well, _too_ well almost, his wet lips curled in a devious smile between her thighs as she’d writhed with the languid, wicked agony of it.  He’d finally succumbed to her pleading and pushed her over the edge and carried her down the other side with soft kisses and gentle endearments.

Well, there was nothing soft or gentle about this.  Natasha arched her back against his arm, her own arms weakly clasped around his neck, riding his thrusts because she was too spent and too dizzy with pleasure to do much else.  He was bound and determined to get another climax out of her, and one could never say Captain America wasn’t tenacious when he saw a battle he needed to win.  Vaguely she could tell he was holding himself back to do it, a bit of sweat beading on his forehead and glistening on his skin from the effort.  He cupped the back of her skull, guiding her face back down so he could kiss her.  It was wet, sloppy, no effort on her part.  Not anymore.  “Come on, Nat,” he coaxed into her open, slack lips.  Through the slits of her eyelids, she could see his eyes, blown wide with desire but still somehow so focused on what he wanted.  “Come on.  Come so I can.”

For all his prowess, he so rarely talked like _that,_ and that command coupled with his low growl into her mouth went straight to her core.  And his thumb pressed _hard_ between her legs and he pounded right up inside her _hard_ where it felt the best, and lightning jolted across her nerves.  Loudly she cried out, fingers yanking his hair and toes curling against his calves and muscles stiffening and clenching around him and everything _so good._   She was still high with it, still clambering through the waves of it, when he pushed her back down away from the headboard, folding her pliant body beneath him.  He raised himself onto his knees and bracketed her small form, thrusting into her roughly a few more times.  He came with a strangled whine, burying his face into her breasts and shuddering through it.  His release inside her was heat compounding on heat, and she held him tight and tried to breathe.

It took a bit for her to gather her senses.  Really good, wonderful, stupendous, _mind-blowingly amazing_ sex _with Steve_ tended to do that to her.  “Holy shit,” she whispered, letting her eyes slip shut.  “Holy shit.”

He groaned, hot and heavy atop her.  “Somethin’ like that,” he slurred.

She threaded her fingers through the damp strands of his hair and hummed appreciatively, content under his weight, luxuriating in that bone-dead weariness that came from complete satiation.  Everything was spent.  Her desire.  Her body.  Her brain.  Her blood was thrumming with satisfaction.  “So good, baby.  So, so good.”

“Mmm…  Yeah.”  He turned his head wearily, pressing a few lazy kisses up her sternum to her throat and chin and finally her mouth.  She kissed back a little more forcefully, summoning some energy from somewhere to thank him, opening her mouth to him for a last, sweet tryst.

He chuckled as he took it.  Then he pulled away, pulled out of her and rolled onto his back to lay beside her with one arm bent at the elbow and tucked under his head.  They were backwards on their bed, and the quilt was rumpled and bunched up uncomfortably beneath them.  It was a little cold now, her skin prickling with cooling sweat, but he hooked his arm around her and pulled her close.  She closed her thighs against the pleasant ache and pillowed her head on his shoulder, tracing the dips and planes of his muscled belly and chiseled chest with lethargic adoration.  There was no place better than this.

He gave a deep, satisfied sigh, one that was married with a soft, happy laugh, before kissing the crown of her head.  “You’ll be the death of me, love.”

She smiled into his chest, dragging her lips over his pec a little to hide it, to hide how damn _proud_ she was of just _how much_ she had taught him.  She’d been his partner now for almost a year, charged by Director Fury to oversee Captain America’s integration into the twenty-first century and his training as a SHIELD agent.  She’d taken that important task to heart, at first instructing him in everything she could from the world history he’d missed while trapped in the ice to the newest technology to pop culture to changes in political, economic, and societal norms.  She’d helped him learn modern warfare, new fighting styles and martial arts, the ins and outs of covert tactics and espionage.  She’d guided him every step of the way through processing the enormity of this crazy world, transforming him from an outdated soldier to one of SHIELD’s best and most powerful assets.  During all that, they’d forged a deep friendship, the bond that was often born between two people sharing difficult circumstances, strenuous things like tough missions and her dark, damaged past and him losing everything and everyone he’d loved.  Between ops, they’d started spending free time together in his apartment and hers, watching movies and eating take-out and talking.  So much _talking_.  Natasha had never been with anyone like this, never had a friend like Steve.  Someone she trusted this deeply, this easily, this completely.  That was who he was: openly earnest, sincere and so entirely good.  Beautiful.  Perfect, in so many ways.  He’d been there for her when missions had been rough and unpleasant.  He’d been there for her when her guilt from her time in the Red Room had troubled her, gently convincing her to unburden herself by sharing her memories.  He’d bravely and selflessly carried the weight of it all with her.  And she’d been there for him when the grief had been particularly strong, easing him through his regrets and doubts.  Without even noticing, they’d built this connection between them, pure and right and everything they’d both needed.  She looked back on it now and felt stupid for not realizing right away that connection had been love.

And once he’d finally taken that leap and confessed how he felt, _put_ that important label on their shared feelings…  When Director Fury had summoned her to his office to tell her that he was reassigning her to work with Captain America, that she’d be in charge of his modern day education, she was pretty sure he hadn’t meant she should teach him what she’d been so eagerly teaching him of late.  Oh, well.  That made her grin again.  “I will, huh?”

“God, yes,” Steve murmured.  “Do you have any idea what you do to me?”

“Tell me,” she whispered, just a little full of herself again.  Just a little.

“You wear me out, doll, every time.  Every time.  Didn’t know it was possible for anything to feel this good.”

She was blushing.  Holy shit, she was actually _blushing._ “You’re full of it.”

“Nope.”  Overcome by pride that _she_ reduced Captain America to this six-foot frame of melted muscles and sated senses, she grinned like crazy.  Then, too embarrassed at how she felt, she nipped playfully at his nipple, enjoying how he sucked in a surprised breath.  He was quick to roll, lightly restraining her at his side.  “Quit it.  I got nothing left.”

She didn’t either, honestly.  That soreness was getting a little more persistent, and she was too tired to even think about moving, let alone going for another round.  One thing she’d learned right away as Captain America’s girlfriend: Steve had a pretty healthy sex drive.  They did it _a lot_ (and not always in entirely appropriate places, the locker room at the Triskelion and the back of an empty quinjet on a mission and in the hangar bay of the helicarrier for starters).  She wasn’t complaining (not one bit, mind you) that he wanted her so much.  She wanted him just as much.  And it was Sunday, and they were both off.  There wasn’t much else to do (or that she wanted to do), so she licked the nipple she’d just lightly bitten and reveled anew in his minute shudder and leaned up to capture his lips with a promise of later.  Sleep first. 

Well, sleep for her.  Steve didn’t always need it thanks to the super soldier serum in his veins.  It proffered enhanced strength and constitution (that was clear for everyone to see.  Well, for everyone else to ogle because _this_ perfect specimen, this male personification of not just handsomeness but beauty, this veritable _Adonis_ in the flesh?  This was _hers_ , and she didn’t care how possessive and petty that might be.  She liked the little, dark, gleeful whisper that curled about her thoughts and boldly declared _mine_ every time she saw Steve _)._   In addition to the obvious, though, the serum reduced Steve’s fatigue considerably, so he didn’t collapse after physical activity (or energetic sex) like she was about to.

One thing before that, though.  “Too worn out to get ice cream?”

He wrinkled his nose in annoyance.  “Yeah.”

“Please?  We’re out.”

This was their day, and she was going to enjoy it in every way imaginable, ice cream included.  Ice cream and whipped cream and chocolate syrup… drizzled on her bare body, with him dutifully licking every single speck of it off.  _Okay, file that for later._

Steve scowled a little harder.  “You want me to get dressed and go down to the corner store to get ice cream.  Right now.”  She grinned.  “I was thinking about taking a nap, actually.”

“Ice cream first?” she said hopefully.

“Oh, come on, Nat.”

She was not above begging.  Or whining.  _“Please?”_

He stared at her a second, an annoyed frown on his mouth that seemed so misplaced it was hard not to laugh.  She went all in, pouting, sticking her lower lip out, looking at him through her eyelashes quite pathetically.  Eventually (as she knew he would) he cracked.  Heaving an irritated sigh, he stood and searched for his boxers.  “Lord…”

“You love me,” she said sweetly, barely motivating her leaden body to crawl back to the mussed pillows of their bed and squirm beneath the blankets.  They smelled like sex and her perfume and his soap, and they were warm and so nice against her naked body.  She burrowed deep and snuggled into the pillows.

He glared just a little at her, but she could tell it was fake.  Mostly.  “Most of the time,” he grumbled, finally locating his underwear and slipping them back on.

She smirked cheekily from just above the top of the blanket.  “Consider it payment for services rendered.”

He rolled his eyes.  “Yeah, not helping.”  He grabbed his jeans and shirt from the floor.  “What kind.”

“Mint chocolate chip,” she immediately replied.  He rolled his eyes again, shuffling out of the bedroom.  “You’re the best!”  A moment later, the soft thud of his footsteps disappeared down the hallway.

Natasha smiled contentedly, body worn and wonderfully used and well worshipped, heart brimming with so much satisfaction and happiness and love.  She fell asleep almost instantly.

She didn’t sleep long, though.  She didn’t think she had, at any rate.  It was that sort of light doze where you were almost _aware_ that you were drifting, dreaming, not quite slumbering deeply but not entirely awake either.  And she was dreaming of him again.  Haphazard thoughts and sweet emotions and fleeting sensations, all wrapped up in Steve.  She was always wrapped up in him now, gloriously so, so _much_ so that she couldn’t remember what life had been like before him even though it hadn’t been that long ago.  Her brain filled with things, wonderful things.  The way he tasted.  The way he smelled.  How blue his eyes were.  How the sun made his hair seem gold-spun when it struck just right.  How careful and gentle he could be, despite the size and thickness of his muscles.  How he was so much _bigger_ than her, so much _stronger_ , yet where that would have disturbed her with anyone else, she found it incredibly erotic with him.  How all that power could be at her beck and call when she wanted it to be.  How she could hold him still, below her, beneath her, and control his pleasure, and he _let_ her.  How he trusted her to do that, to teach him, to show him.  To love him.

She woke up with a little gasp, intoxicated and almost delirious with it.  _“Bozhe moy,”_ she whispered, her heart pounding just a little, squirming a little more.  The memories were slow to release her, so vivid (probably because they were so recent), and she didn’t do much to hurry their exit.  It was like taking a long, last lick of the richest, most decadent dessert imaginable, and she felt that ache between her legs again and the wetness there and the bruises on her thighs and the hickeys that she knew were coloring her throat…  And she relished it.

Okay, so maybe she was a little addicted to him.  A lot addicted.  All that sex, _mind-blowing sex_ , and it was still all she could think about.  It was kind of pathetic, but she wasn’t upset enough to be embarrassed, especially not alone as she was in their bed and empty apartment.  Later tonight, after he’d had a chance to recover, after she had, she could make _him_ scream…  “Get a grip.”

Too hot and bothered for the blanket (and for staying still), she threw the covers off and climbed out of bed.  The throbbing tenderness was a little more persistent now, cooling her passion to a more tepid and ignorable state.  Wincing, she got another of his shirts from where it had been dumped on the floor.  Putting it on, she headed toward the bathroom in search of a shower.

Flipping on the lights, she went to the tiled stall and turned the water on.  The spray immediately whished to life, and she tested the temperature a second or two before stepping lightly back to the little linen closet attached to the room to get a towel.  There weren’t any.  Sighing, she remembered the basket of laundry that needed to be done but had been forgotten in the face of the recent mission that had taken them away from home for a few days.  Irritated a moment, she remembered there might be another clean towel in the guest bathroom, which was hardly if ever used.  So she slipped out of the bathroom, across the bedroom, and down the hall on light feet.  And she pushed open the door to the other bathroom with a little creak.

“What the hell?”

Steve was there, back to the door, boxers at his feet, and very clearly getting himself off.  He’d been panting that way he always did when he was close to coming.  He couldn’t hide that, even though he stopped instantly, dropping his hands from himself.  His eyes widened hugely in horror when he realized she’d caught him, and the color drained from his face (although, how there could be any blood there boggled the mind since his erection was huge and ridiculously hard and impossibly red and very much _not_ worn out).  Natasha’s mouth fell open in shock, and Steve reached for the hand towel hanging on the bar behind him to cover himself like she hadn’t _seen_ him before (which was all sorts of stupid given what they’d been doing for weeks now and what they’d just done).

But, given what they’d just done, everything came right back to her original question.  She was so surprised she just asked it again.  “What the hell?”

“Nat, Nat, I can…”  He seemed about ready to melt into his terror and shame.  “I can explain, okay?  I can – I was going to get the ice cream, but I needed to take a shower and I…  Okay, no.  I mean…  This isn’t what it looks…”  He stopped himself because that was so fucking stupid she couldn’t believe he’d even try it.  His shoulders slumped.  He looked ridiculous with that tiny hand towel clutched around his hips and damn well tenting despite it all.  “Okay, okay, it is what it looks like.”

She was flustered.  “You’re…  You’re _jacking off?_ ”  Flabbergasted.  “Now?”  _Furious._   “After we just had sex?”

His lips made a few aborted, spastic shifts, like he was trying to find something to say.  “Uh…”

She couldn’t believe this.  She stepped further inside the bathroom, anger bursting over her.  “You said you were worn out!  You said you had nothing left!”

He winced.  Finally his hard-on was getting less hard, and his cheeks colored with a deep red blush.  “I…  I lied?  I…”

“You told me _I_ wore you out!”

“You did, Nat!  You did.  Okay?  Really.  I didn’t lie about it being good.  I wouldn’t.  I wouldn’t!”

She shook her head.  “Then what…”

His one hand dropped a side of the towel, revealing his wilting manhood, and he reached for her.  She backed up almost instinctively.  “It’s…”  He shook his head, flustered and obviously ashamed and trapped and so very embarrassed.

She couldn’t muster much sympathy for him, not given the multiple wads of wet tissues scattered around the vanity and filling the waste basket.  “God, how many times have you–”

“It’s the serum, okay?  I need to…  You’re not always enough.”

That was the _wrong_ thing to say.  Pain likely danced across her face before she was able to control her features, and his eyes widened with the dawning realization of how awful that was.  “It’s not you!  It’s not that _you’re_ not enough.  It’s the serum.  It’s a side effect.  I can…”  He slumped even further, tipping his head back and swallowing so thickly that his Adam’s apple seemed to lurch.  She stared, waiting for him to continue, _fuming._   “Ever since Project: Rebirth, I just…  Normal things aren’t enough most of the time.”

“Normal things?” she asked, coolly arching an eyebrow.

“Making love,” he quickly amended, cowed by her unspoken threat that any further falsehoods would be met with unpleasantness.  “Some nights, c-coming…”  He stumbled over that word now.  Funny given how he’d confidently _growled_ it into her mouth not too long ago.  “Coming once or even twice barely takes the edge off.  It’s the serum.   You know, the serum?”  Babbling and repeating himself.  Good signs of complete mental degeneration in the face of total humiliation.  “It’s a side effect!  It’s the same with… with _this_ as it is with everything else.  I have to eat more and I can go longer without sleep and I need to keep active and I need… to… to…  But it’s fine!  I can deal with it, you know?”

She was tempted for a moment to dial her rage back a notch.  Honestly, he looked so devastated at the mere thought of upsetting her that it was difficult not to.  His face was fractured with fear, his eyes open and desperate to make this better.  He was breathing heavily and pleading with his gaze.  She let her anger cool.

But then…  “Wait.  You said most of the time?”  It didn’t seem possible, but Steve looked even more wrecked.  His jaw fell open again, mouth useless as he silently struggled to find a way to explain what she was slowly beginning to understand.  _No._   This…  _No, no, no._   She shook her head, her own eyes widening, and her ire was doused in an icy wave of _understanding._ “You mean…”  She couldn’t bear to say it.  She couldn’t bear to _think_ it.  The words came out all the same, soft and meek and horrified.  “I’ve never satisfied you?”

Steve was fast then, a tad clumsy but quick to yank his underwear back up.  He stumbled toward her, grabbing her arms gently, and this time she didn’t pull away.  She was too stricken.  “No, no, Nat.  _No._   You satisfy me.  You satisfy me all the time!  _Every_ time!”  His eyes were burning bright, feverish, frantic to tell her, to make her understand.  “You always make me feel so good.  I’d never lie about that!”

“But it’s not enough,” she said firmly, wriggling out of his grasp.  “What I do for you…  It’s not enough!”  She turned on her heel and headed back down the hall.  The taupe walls were spinning around her.  God, this was fucking _stupid._   It wasn’t as if she’d just learned he didn’t love her or wanted to leave her or – God forbid – he was hurt or something.  In the grand scheme of things, this was _nothing_ really.

It didn’t feel like nothing.

“Nat!  Nat!”

He was right behind her, desperate, and she whirled on him.  Denial poured from her.  Doubt, because maybe this wasn’t right.  It _couldn’t_ be right.  “I’ve _never_ pleased you?  Never?  Not all the times we’ve had sex?”

Steve gulped again like he didn’t want to admit the truth, which, in turn, admitted the truth.  He’d always been shit for lying.  But, then again, apparently he’d fooled her into thinking she’d satisfied him all these weeks when he’d just silently suffered and willed his body into unhappy submission or snuck away to jerk off alone while she slept.  “No.”

She wanted to scream or throttle him or cry or she didn’t know what.  _All_ the times they’d had sex and he’d _never_ been fully satisfied.  _Never._   He’d faked it.  She felt so low, almost betrayed.  “Why didn’t you say something?” she demanded.

“I – I didn’t want you to think you had to…  I can’t do that.  I can’t…”  He shook his head, letting his hands drop to his sides in exasperation.  “I can’t ask you to keep doing it just because I’m not done.  That’s selfish.  It’s not right.”

“Maybe I would’ve wanted to!” she returned hotly.  “You ever think of that?”

He grimaced.  “Wouldn’t it…”  He blushed again.  She used to think it was so adorable.  “Wouldn’t it start to _hurt_ after a while?”

That seemed like a challenge.  She knew it wasn’t, but her ego was slashed and deflated and stomped into nothingness.  She felt fundamentally shaken, like the world was off-kilter and her identity was at stake or some such nonsense.  She was Black Widow, goddamn it!  She _knew_ sex.  She _knew_ how to get a man off!  Maybe her past and what the Red Room had trained her to do was a source of anguish for her now and then, but they’d trained her to be a seductress, a temptress, to use sex like a weapon and make her mark _hers._  This was an affront to _everything_ she used to be and still could be if she damn well wanted it.  “How many times?”

He gave a horrified jerk of his head and played dumb.  “What?”

“How many times would you need to come to feel finished?”

“Uh…”

Two was his normal number, well, what she’d _thought_ had been his normal number.  Once or twice, she’d gotten him to three.  Obviously that wasn’t sufficient.  Impatient, she stepped right up to him, her chest heaving and eyes flashing.  “How many times, Rogers?”

He blanched.  “I don’t know.  Five.  Six sometimes.  Maybe.”

Okay, that would _more_ than begin to hurt.  She shook her head in shock, like the number he’d just offered was equivalent to the height of Mount Everest.  Insurmountable.  And he might have been lowballing it just to appease her.  “I can get you off other ways,” she finally reminded.  It was lurid and maybe a tad pornographic, the images in her head.  She’d do it, though.  She loved him, and she’d do anything to rectify what to her felt to be a monumental shortcoming.  “You know what I mean.  I can suck you off or–”

“Lord, Nat, _no._ ”  He tightened his jaw with that patented Captain America frown of disapproval.  It was _really_ misplaced in this conversation.  “I – I can’t keep getting off when you can’t get any pleasure from it.”

“Steve, I’d want to do that for you!”

“I don’t care.  It’s not right.  It wouldn’t feel good, knowing I can’t do anything for you like that.  When you’re done, you’re done.  You shouldn’t have to keep going just for me.  Or delay yourself for me.  Or do _anything_ special for me.  I don’t need you to do that.”

Damn him and his self-sacrificing nature.  She couldn’t even put into words how touched she was that he tied his pleasure to hers so fully, that it wasn’t _good_ for him unless it was good for her.  But he was honestly putting too much stock in the equality and fairness of it.  Like everything else in a relationship, sex was give _and_ take.  And she hated it when he took a hit for the team, so to speak.  Valued himself less than everyone else.  Less than her.  So she shook her head, very frustrated.  “Steve–”

“Services rendered.  It’s not a joke.”  Clearly not, because he wasn’t smiling and there wasn’t a speck of humor in his eyes.  “ _That’s_ what it would feel like.”

That – him turning her own quip against her – stopped her dead in her tracks.  All the fight suddenly left her, and now she was the one who slumped, horrified and hurt and so damn defeated.  He was right there to catch her, of course, and he did, pulling her close and wrapping his arms around her.  The safest place in the world, she’d felt of late.  Now everything seemed different.  “Hey, it’s okay?  I don’t care.  I really don’t.”

“Well, I do,” she moaned into his shoulder.

“You shouldn’t.”  He rubbed his huge hands up and down her back in a soothing sweep.  “It’s not your fault.  It’s not you.  It’s no reflection on you.  You’re perfect.  You do everything right, Nat, _everything._ ”  She closed her eyes against the stupid burn of tears.  She’d _failed_ him.  That was what it was.  _Failure._   “I’m very happy with what we have.  And I’m sorry.”  That was even worse, and so typical Steve.  _She’d_ failed him, and _he_ was the one apologizing to _her_.  “I’m sorry I kept it secret for so long.  I just didn’t want you to think… well, what I know you’re thinking.  Or feel obligated to do more.”

 _Do more._   Like leave him wrecked and ruined and completely debauched and too _fucked out_ to move.  Like he’d done for her dozens of times.

_I’ve never done that for him._

He peeled her away gently and donned a sweet smile, one of the many smiles she’d fallen in love with.  “Hey, it’s fine.  Really.  I don’t mind finishing myself off when I need to.  My problem, not yours.”  _No, it’s my problem._   “It’s just… a stupid biological reaction tied to my… to my stupid dick.”  _Super soldier stamina._   She didn’t know if she wanted to laugh or cry at that.  She thought she might do both.  Of course he noticed her lip quivering and her eyes filling and tugged her against him again.  “C’mere, love.  Don’t worry about it.  Don’t even _think_ about it.  It’s fine.  It really is.”  He kissed her forehead firmly and hugged her tight.  “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” was what she said, but what she thought was this: _it’s not fine.  It’s in no way, shape, or form_ ever _going to be fine._

* * *

Apparently finding out she wasn’t pleasing her man in bed was just the start of a really shitty week.

The mission they’d just completed had gone off without a hitch.  They’d been sent to some research lab in South Africa, a place where a group of terrorists had been designing new biological weapons with a slew of dangerous pathogens and chemicals they’d stolen from a few other places around the globe.  SHIELD had gotten wise to their aims a few weeks ago, but it had taken that long for the analysts at the Hub and the field agents to track down where they’d actually been doing the work.  With the location confirmed, Fury had dispatched his best: Hawkeye, Black Widow, Captain America, and the STRIKE Team.  That much firepower had overwhelmed the terrorists.  They hadn’t had much of a chance, even though they’d been among the more well-trained and well-equipped enemies SHIELD had faced lately.  Natasha, Clint, and the STRIKE Team really hadn’t needed to go in.  Steve was a force to be reckoned with, and he’d powered past security, charged into the lab, and single-handedly shut down the resistance before the battle had even started.  The STRIKE Team had joked about it as they’d rounded up and arrested the terrorists.  Captain America, the one-man army.

At any rate, they’d taken all the terrorists’ data.  The main guy they’d wanted to nab, an ex-virologist from Harvard named John Sutter who apparently thought developing and selling bioweapons was a more lucrative venture than actually working for a living, hadn’t been there unfortunately.  But, overall, it had been a rather resounding success.  No casualties.  No mishaps.  Natasha and Clint had been able to waltz into the lab’s server rooms and download everything they’d been sent to get without firing a gun.

Normally that would have been cause for celebration or at least a good reason to avoid stewing as much as she was.  And she _was_ stewing, and not just about the usual heap of work.  She was trying hard not to let what Steve had told her bother her, but…  Well, it was pretty much impossible.  _She’d never pleased him._   She couldn’t believe it.  They’d been having sex for months, amazing, _mind-blowing_ sex, and he’d never been completely satisfied.  Maybe in the beginning it had been okay.  He’d been a virgin, so he probably hadn’t known any better.  But recently?  There was no excuse.  _No excuse._   Therefore, that ugly sense of failure clung to her all yesterday no matter how many times Steve tried to distract her or tell her it was fine.  Of course he’d been nothing but sheepishly sweet about it all, fetching her ice cream and her favorite take-out Indian food and even bringing her flowers.  He’d offered to do anything, _anything_ to make her feel better, but she’d managed a smile and told him she was okay.  She hadn’t been okay, though, not even as they’d gone to bed.  She still felt so fundamentally wrong, like she wasn’t who she had been just a few hours ago.  And she hadn’t slept.  Steve had.  He’d been wrapped possessively around her, breathing slowly and evenly into her neck and peacefully dreaming.  All last night, she’d hardly slept a wink.

So she was starting the week tired and cranky and still feeling awful about it all.  She’d dragged herself into work, Steve quiet and walking around her on eggshells the whole morning.  He’d tenderly kissed her goodbye in the parking lot, heading off to tend to some sort of important Avengers business.  She had a date with bureaucracy.  Even perfect missions required field reports, debriefings, various and sundry meetings, and paperwork.  She hadn’t much thought about the op in South Africa over the weekend, too thrilled to have some downtime with the man she loved, but about five minutes into this grumpy Monday morning, hell started.  It started before she’d had one sip of her morning coffee.

“Guess Cap doesn’t need you anymore, huh, Romanoff?”

Natasha turned from where she was getting her coffee.  This breakroom was one of the airier places in the Triskelion, with windows that overlooked the bright summer day over the Potomac River, but even the cheery light streaming through the windows couldn’t make the sight of Brock Rumlow and Jack Rollins walking closer any more appealing.  Both of them were excellent black ops soldiers, some of the best in the world, but they had a streak of asshole in them a mile wide, Rumlow in particular.  They were bullies, pure and simple, and cruel on top of it.  They delighted in watching people squirm.  That sort of behavior had its place on the battlefield and in the interrogation room, but they went after anyone they deemed an interesting target.  Case in point: there were a dozen breakrooms in the Triskelion, probably most of them empty at this time in the morning, but these two had come here.  The odds that this was a coincidence were so abysmally low that Natasha knew instantly they were there to give her shit.

So she gritted her teeth and finished pouring her coffee.  “Good morning to you, too, Rumlow.”

Rumlow smiled that fake, condescending smile of his as they approached the coffee cart.  “How’re ya doing?”  He glanced at her stack of files and pads.  “Paperwork?”

She was Black Widow.  She could lie better than anyone.  “Yes.  And I’m good, thanks.”

The fake pleasantries continued.  “Have a nice weekend?”

 _No._   “Yeah.  You?”

“Decent.  Hit the gym.  Got laid.”  She resisted the urge to roll her eyes as he came to stand right next to her, too close for her comfort.  “Had to burn some extra energy off, you know, since the mission didn’t get the job done for me.”  Rumlow grabbed a styrofoam cup and reached for the carafe.  “Blame your boyfriend.”

It was pretty common knowledge that she and Steve were together, but considering _who_ they were, nobody said anything about it.  Even Fury was silently complacent (maybe even approving).  But there were definitely people who gossiped, who whispered behind their backs, and who wanted to use their relationship against them.  Trust that _today_ would be the day that Rumlow finally grew a pair of balls big enough to try.  She supposed it had been inevitable.  The tensions between Rumlow and her were always waxing and waning, but they’d definitely been ramping up of late, ever since a mission a few weeks back where she’d saved him from meeting his untimely end during a firefight in Siberia.  He’d been oh so _grateful_ for that, embarrassed as all get out and furious that _she’d_ been the one to bail out his butt, so he’d been picking at her since.  “Yeah, he was pretty amazing,” she said guardedly.

“First op ever where I didn’t even fire my gun,” Rumlow mused.  “Kinda depressing, actually.  Spent the whole time shooting the shit and smoking, right?”  Behind him, Rollins nodded.  He was a brute of a guy, big chested, hard in the face, and completely humorless.  Muscle, basically.  “Makes you wonder why Fury even sent the rest of us.”

Natasha refused to rise to his bait.  “Not every mission needs to be a firefight.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” Rumlow said around a chuckle.  “But, then again, he’s Captain America.  Would be kinda surprising if he wasn’t the best, right?”

She didn’t like where he was going with this.  “Right.”

He nodded and shrugged.  “I mean, you saw him.  He shut down that lab _by himself._ And that’s not the end of it.  The guy’s mastered the twenty-first century.  It was kinda sad for a while, with him floundering around like… well, like a man out of time.  But he’s got it down now.  All the tech and history and pop culture.  You can finally talk with him and not feel like you’re talking to an old fart.  And he fights like…  Holy shit.  It’s amazing.”  If she hadn’t been certain before that Rumlow was playing her (and she had been), she was _completely_ sure now.  She’d never heard the man compliment anyone before, particularly for something like that, something Rumlow prized so much about himself.  “I was kinda doubtful Mr. Wholesome-as-American-Pie could ever be badass, but he is.  Fucking A.  So, like I said, he doesn’t need you to hold his hand anymore.”

She tensed.  She couldn’t help it really.  Hearing him say that just compounded that feeling of failure.  _I’ve never pleased Steve in bed.  Never._ There was no way Rumlow could _know_ about what had happened yesterday, but this sure seemed fucking purposeful, and she was raw and paranoid enough about it all that her normal cold equanimity was unreachable.  “There’re always new things to learn,” she lamely said in defense.

“Well, sure.  But maybe he’ll be learning it from someone else.”  _What?_   “I guess you didn’t hear that Fury’s thinking about reassigning him to command STRIKE.”  No.  No, she had _not_ heard that.  And the rational part of her brain still functioning under the icy weight of her shock recognized immediately that Rumlow was probably blowing smoke up her ass.  Pushing her buttons to get a reaction.  He was the sort of jerk to do that, to make stuff up to torture his prey, to lie just to get a rise out of her.

But what if he wasn’t lying?

Rumlow added some creamer to his coffee and grabbed a little plastic stirrer to mix it.  “Yeah, I guess the big man’s meeting with Hill and Sitwell to go over the mission reports for the last few weeks.  I mean, it wasn’t like this mission was the first time Rogers kicked total ass.  The guy’s the definition of a first strike weapon.  Top of the line.  Best of the best.  So rumor has it Fury’s gonna make better use of him now that you’re done popping his cherry.”  Natasha glared.  Rumlow smirked.  “Metaphorically.  You know, in terms of getting him acclimated to the here and now.  Anyway, they’re going to rearrange everything, put Cap in charge of us and get you back doing what you do best.”

 _No._ That wasn’t true.  _It wasn’t._   There was _no way_ Fury would reassign Steve, that he’d break up their partnership, without telling one or both of them first.  Fury could be cold and emotionless when it suited him, but he wasn’t mean or vindictive.  And he valued both Steve and Natasha greatly, as agents and Avengers and _people_.  He wouldn’t do that to them.

_But what if he would?_

Rumlow sighed.  He lifted his cup to his lips to take a drink.  “Probably for the best.  It’s a waste of his time continuing with you and a waste of your… _talents_ on him _._ ”  There it was.  _This_ was what she’d expected when the two men had sauntered into the breakroom.  Rumlow was a bastard, but he had the hots for her.  She’d known it for years.  He considered her both a threat and a conquest, and his favorite weapons against her were these not so subtle jabs at her previous life as a seductress and assassin.  It likely grinded his gears that she was with Captain America, a man whose high caliber was about as far from their _low_ caliber as imaginable.  He grinned around his cup.  “But I guess that’s something he still needs you for, right?”

She was with it enough to bristle.  _Her talents._   Not enough to satisfy a super soldier, it seemed.  All the sudden and as _stupid_ as it was, she wanted to cry.  Normally she was so much better than this at keeping her emotions under her control.  Normally she was _the best_ at it.  And normally she could tell when another person was lying.  The Red Room had taught her to be perceptive, to judge truth from tone of voice and body language.  But she was so rattled and shaken she couldn’t do anything but stupidly and silently reel in consuming horror.

Rumlow knew he’d gotten her.  He grinned again.  “Anyway, we’re due for a mission debrief.  Enjoy your paperwork.”  That was said with a sneer.  Then he and Rollins were gone, and she was alone with her spinning thoughts and creeping feelings of inadequacy.

* * *

The rest of the day didn’t get any better.  Nor the day after that.  _Nor_ the day after that.  Truth be told, Natasha drifted through it all, doing her work and functioning but detached in a way because nothing seemed real.  In fact, it seemed _less_ real than it had when Steve had told her the truth.  Like waking from a bad dream of sorts, everything after it was a bit distorted.  If she ignored it all, she could feel normal.  She could feel like herself again, cool and confident.  _Black Widow.  Avenger.  Captain America’s lover._   If she could just ignore it, everything would be the way it had been.

It was _really_ difficult to ignore it, though, particularly with the rumors circulating the Triskelion now.  She knew it was Rumlow’s doing.  Funny thing about SHIELD: its agents, soldiers, techs, and personnel were on the whole ridiculously nosy busybodies.  It was gruffer and quieter than an old ladies’ sewing circle, sure, but the concept was about the same.  The gossip made the rounds, and by the time it got around to her not long after she’d run into Rumlow, it had, of course, expanded.  She heard the whispers, caught the curious but fearful sideways glances.  No one was brave enough to say anything to her face.  They never were.  _“Did you hear?  Black Widow’s being reassigned.”_

_“Fury thinks she’s holding Rogers back.”_

_“They’re going to make Cap lead STRIKE.”_

_“Where does that leave Romanoff?”_

_“Who the hell cares?  She’s not good enough for him.”_

_“Always thought he deserved more.”_

_“Never understood why she got to be his partner in the first place.  Or an Avenger.”_

_“Does this mean they’re finished?”_

_“Who knows.  He can do better.”_

Steve was far more upset by the trash-talk and gossip than she was.  He was downright livid.  He offered to confront the people spreading it, to go to Hill or Fury if need be, but Natasha had declined.  She’d never much cared about other people’s opinions of her.  She’d come into SHIELD in difficult circumstances, with only Clint’s support protecting her.  She’d never thought (or expected) the people here to accept her, a woman who’d been their enemy once and whose past would always haunt her.  So it didn’t bother her so much.  And the thought of him fighting this battle for her?  Well, that wasn’t doing much to elevate her already downtrodden self-esteem.

Besides, the rumors weren’t true.  Fury hadn’t approached either of them about reassignment.  Natasha had been poking around the upper echelons of SHIELD, trying to do her own sleuthing, and there was absolutely _no sign_ of Sitwell or Hill or anyone evaluating them or preparing any sort of transfer or change in primary duties.  She was still Steve’s partner.  He was still hers.  All of the gossip was irrelevant.

Still, she was unnerved, and the threat of being separated wasn’t the only thing bothering her.  They hadn’t had sex since their day off.  She supposed that wasn’t _that_ unusual; it wasn’t like they were constantly screwing (well, maybe a three-day gap was a bit on the rare side…).  But sex was suddenly like this topic that couldn’t be broached, this problem that couldn’t be acknowledged, this territory that couldn’t again simply be breached.  It was the proverbial elephant in the room, huge and unavoidable despite their efforts to avoid it, constantly lumbering around them, framing every interaction they had.  And it was awkward as hell.  Steve was as sweet and affectionate as ever, but it was strikingly obvious that he was still walking on eggshells, uncertain of what to do or when to do it.  He hugged her, kissed her, held her close at night, but his hands didn’t wander and his kisses were tame.  He was very clearly trying to follow her lead, read her signals and respond appropriately.  He was trying to do what she wanted.

She wasn’t putting many signals out, actually, because she didn’t know _what_ she wanted.  This shouldn’t have been bothering her this much.  The whole thing was so fucking stupid.  She was better than this, better than Rumlow, better than the people spreading rumors about her, better than her own doubts.  She knew she was good, a good lover, a good agent, a good person.  She _knew_ it.  But she couldn’t settle her emotions, couldn’t quiet her doubts.  She’d never felt like this before, and it really sucked.

Therefore, it was easier, more comfortable, to detach and drift and just let things happen.

Thursday rolled around.  It was commonly known by the level seven and level eight agents as the day where you “put in your hours” because the afternoon was always filled with training for the lower levels and new recruits.  It was obligatory, and everyone hated it.  This week in particular Natasha had no patience for it.  This was hardly the first time she’d led the hand-to-hand combat training session with Steve; in fact, their class was one of the most popular, regularly attended by a crowd of eager students and non-combat ready personnel.  This afternoon, though, _was_ the first time that she felt like she couldn’t keep up.

And it wasn’t that Steve was any faster or stronger or smarter than he had been last week or any other week they’d done this.  It was that _she_ was different.  Uncertain when she was fighting for the first time _ever_ that she could recall.  She hesitated again and again on the mats, doubted about the best counter or strike, and those split seconds were costly.  Fighting Steve, even when Steve was restraining his physical prowess, wasn’t something to take lightly.  She’d beaten him in the past but not since she’d taught him parkour and Eastern techniques and how to be just a little more ruthless and cunning.  Now he was indomitable.  She hadn’t realized, as she was backing up and sweating and working hard to block his advances, that she actually hadn’t won a match in quite some time.  And he was Captain America.  She was remarkable in her own right but she wasn’t that.

That wasn’t much consolation when Steve got the best of her _yet again_ and swept her legs out from under her.  She went down with an _oomph,_ his bulk settling over her in a way that snapped her rather harshly from her haze.  She focused, surprised at how quickly he’d dropped her this time, pissed off at how sloppy and inept she’d been, irritated at the feel of his body pinning hers, dominating hers, with that stupid, earnest, _innocent_ look of concern on his face.  “Yield?” he queried.

She couldn’t find her voice she was so disgusted at herself, so she nodded.  Steve’s eyes lingered on hers a moment, asking all sorts of silent questions, _are you okay?_ and _what’s the matter?_ and _can you do this?_ and _are you with me?_ chief among them.  She wanted to be angry at him, but this wasn’t his fault.  It wasn’t his fault the serum made him this way, faster and stronger and better.  It wasn’t his fault he beat her without breaking a sweat (she could see that up close.  There wasn’t a spot of perspiration on his face, and God that angered her more).  And it wasn’t his fault the serum made him have seemingly endless stamina when it came to sex.  _None_ of it was his fault.

Yeah, not much consolation.

He let her up and turned to the audience (yep, that was the word for it.  _The audience._   Dozens of recruits and other people crowded around and watching, including Clint.  This was the fourth or fifth time Steve had bested her while sparring over the last twenty minutes, so these people were getting a fantastic show of just how lousy she was doing today.  Fucking wonderful).  Steve’s voice carried out over them, clear and concise as he explained how to use misdirection during combat effectively (that was a laugh, considering _she’d_ taught _him_ that).  During his lesson, she backed off and checked out, trying to catch her breath and pretend to be more nonchalant than she was actually feeling.  It was a small mercy when Clint realized she wasn’t up for another round of demonstration, and the archer was up and onto the sparring platform before Natasha even noticed Steve starting again.  Depressed and tired, she went to the locker room.  The class was almost done anyway.

She managed to hide in the showers long enough to avoid seeing anyone.  Plus it felt decent to spend a moment in the hot spray, so she did.  The locker rooms were empty and quiet when she emerged to dry off and dress, and again she took her time.  What she imagined everyone was saying about her was probably just as bad or worse as what they were _actually_ saying.  Black Widow losing.  Black Widow _losing it._   Black Widow failing.  “Shut up,” she hissed to her thoughts as she finished with her makeup in front of the long mirror.  Her reflection stared back at her.  She looked the same, was the same.

This was getting ridiculous.

With her head held high, she strolled out of the locker room.  She was fine.  This was all fine.  The training room was as empty as the locker room had been, so that was good.  Steve was gone.  The lights were dimmed, dousing everything in the comfort of shadows, and she felt infinitely better for it.  All she needed to do was cross the room, make it to the elevator, and go wait for Steve in the garage.  She’d hide in their car until he came.  Didn’t matter how many hours that might be.  Her plan was totally reasonable.

But she didn’t make it more than a step.  “What’s going on with you?”

Natasha turned and saw Clint there in the darkness, leaning back beside the women’s locker room with one leg bent at the knee and its foot planted on the wall.  He was freshly showered and dressed in well-worn jeans and a black t-shirt.  “That’s creepy,” she joked lightly, hoping to hide that he startled her.  “You perving on the girls’ locker room?  What’ll Laura think?”

Clint wasn’t put off by her attempt to ignore his question.  No, he just asked it again and came closer, pushing himself off the wall and sticking both his hands in his pants.  “What’s going on, Nat?”

Natasha sighed, wincing and looking back across the room.  That distance to the other side where the doors were might as well have been miles now.  She actually contemplated making a break for it.  And she considered not answering.  Neither was real mature or feasible.  “Nothing.  Nothing’s going on with me.”

That wasn’t any more mature or effective.  She and Clint were close.  As good as she was at lying, she wasn’t going to be able to hide anything from him.  He knew her far too well.  He’d been the one to save her from the Red Room, to bring her to SHIELD, to guide her in building a new and better life.  He’d believed in her when no one else had, protected her when no one else would, taught her how to be that good person she knew she was.  He was like her brother.

So that was one of the many reasons she couldn’t _really_ tell him what the problem was, that she hadn’t been getting her boyfriend off enough times when they fucked (yes, when she was this pissed off, it wasn’t making love.  It was fucking, and she apparently sucked at it now) to leave him satisfied.  It would be somewhat inappropriate.  “Really.”

“Nat, come on.  I’ve heard the rumors.”  Clint shook his head.  “You know there’s not a lick of truth to them.”

Annoyed, she huffed a short breath.  “I know that.”

“Then how come you’re slinking around like this?  How come you weren’t trying during the match today?”  She glared at him.  Clint folded his arms over his chest, not backing down an inch.  “What?  I call it like I see it.”

It was so childish and petty, but she couldn’t stop the words from pouring from her mouth.  “I can’t beat him.”

Clint’s face crinkled in confusion.  “So?”

That only made her angrier.  “So there didn’t seem to be much point in trying, alright?  As much as I like a bunch of junior recruits watching me getting my ass kicked, I have better things to do.”

“Last time I checked, in your book, there was nothing better than doing anything and everything with Steve,” Clint said matter-of-factly.  Natasha said nothing to that because she wasn’t doing this.  Not now, not ever.  Not with Clint.  He wasn’t going to call her out on her bullshit.  She was feeling low enough as it was.  “What, did you suddenly realize you’re dating Captain America?”  She bit her lower lip hard and obstinately continued not talking.  Clint sighed quietly.  “Are you jealous of him?  Because if you are, it’s okay.  It’s kinda hard not to be once in a while.”

“No,” Natasha immediately returned.  She knew she was lying the second she said it, and she tipped her head in irritated resignation.  “Not really.”  Clint coolly cocked a knowing eyebrow.  She rolled her eyes.  “Okay, maybe a little.  But that’s not the problem, Clint.  It’s not like _today_ I realized I’m dating Captain America.  I’ve been teaching him and training with him for months.  I know how good he is.”  _At everything._

“But today you’re realizing he might not need you anymore,” Clint surmised.  “Well, not today.  What day was it?  Monday.  When the rumors started.”  She stiffened and clamped down on it.  Clint watched her carefully and then shook his head.  “Rumlow’s a prick.”

“I know that.”

“He’s just trying to get to you.”

“I _know_ that.”

Confusion crossed Clint’s face.  “This isn’t the first time, and it’s never bothered you before.  So why–”

 _Because he’s right!_   She didn’t say that, though, turning finally and heading across the quiet gym.  Clint jumped after her.  “I realize you’ll probably murder me for suggesting this, and normally I wouldn’t because I know even offering is just bat shit insane, but you’re clearly not yourself so I’m going out on a limb here.  Do you want me to talk–”

Natasha stopped and scowled at him.  Scowled _hard._   And even though Clint was her closest friend and he knew she’d never hurt him, he actually took a tiny step back and raised his hands in surrender.  “Or not.”

It took a moment for her to calm herself.  She knew Clint meant well.  Of course, she did.  And she couldn’t take this out on him.  Drawing a few deeper breaths, she turned away again.  “Steve already offered.  And, no, you don’t need to protect me.  I’m fine.”

“Nat–”

She started walking again, faster, desperate to put distance between him and her, feeling worse and even more messed up.  She wasn’t running away.  _She wasn’t._ “It’s fine, okay?  I can handle it.  Rumlow’s an asshole, and I know all the stuff people are saying about me’s not true.  I know that.  I just…  I need to work through it.  Myself.”

“Nat,” he called after her.  “Nat!”  She stopped and had to turn around.  Clint shook his head again and raised his hands in surrender.  “What does it matter?  If he’s better than you?  As long as he’s making you happy and you’re doing the same for him–”

Her phone beeped in her pocket, silencing Clint, and she reached to get it.  A new text from Hill flashed on the screen.  _“Mission brief.  Situation room in ten.”_   She was equal parts relieved and horrified.  “I have to run,” she said, thumbing the message away before jabbing her phone back in her pocket.

Clint winced.  “Okay.  I’ll see you later?”

“Yeah.”

He gave a feeble, stupid smile.  “Go kick ass?”

She had nothing to say to that, so she turned again and briskly left.

* * *

Rumlow was there of course, and _of course_ he noticed her come in.  His smile was nothing less than ugly, feral and anticipatory and smug.  Normally Natasha would have had to restrain herself from physically wiping it off his face (and maybe castrating him.  She’d be doing the people of the world a service if she did).  Today she averted her eyes and made her way as inconspicuously as possible to the back row of the situation room.

Or it would have been inconspicuous if her six-foot tall boyfriend hadn’t immediately spotted her.  He’d obviously been saving her a seat up front, like he always did if he got to the mission brief before she did.  Now he was heading to the back, and everyone was watching him give Rumlow the stink eye.  That made it worse.  If it wasn’t for the fact she’d get in serious trouble (and for the fact that it would make it even more obvious that something was wrong), she’d have simply walked out.  As it was, the best she could do was hope her cheeks didn’t look as hot as they felt and take a seat.

Steve sat beside her.  He was trying to be discreet, but there was nothing discreet about how he leaned over and made an aborted motion of putting his arm around her.  “Are you okay?”

She couldn’t stomach _one_ more person asking her that, let alone the source of her not-okayness, so she glowered silently and hoped he’d take the hint.  It didn’t matter, at any rate, because Hill strolled briskly inside the room, bearing a few tablets and an air of purpose, and the meeting began.  The low murmur of conversation among the dozen or so attendees from the STRIKE Team instantly quieted.

Hill being Hill didn’t bother with a greeting or any pleasantries or even a smile.  “The analysts at the Hub have been working on decrypting the data that we acquired from South Africa during your previous mission last Friday.  Obviously our attempts to arrest John Sutter were unsuccessful.”

“Yeah, well, the intel wasn’t quite right on that, was it?” Rumlow asked, leaning back in his chair and crossing his knee with his other leg.  It was a slumped posture, the sort that radiated not giving a shit.  Natasha glared at him from the back of the room and hated him all the more.  The worst part was, he was right.  The intel on the last mission hadn’t exactly been stellar.  Sutter hadn’t been there, nor had they found bioweapons, at least not in any relevant number.

“Be that as it may,” Hill said slowly, “we’ve got eyes on him now.  We’ve tracked him to an arms dealer outside of Dubai.  This man: Khalil Khandar.”  Maria brought up some images on the room’s massive screens.  One was of a younger Caucasian man with a ridiculous mop of curly red hair and freckles.  He looked like…  Well, like a nerd.  _Sutter._ He had a lab coat on and somewhat thick glasses on a narrow nose that made his face seem even longer and less attractive.  The other image was of a Persian man.  He had black, beady eyes, thinning black hair, and a wiry goatee that framed a hard frown.  _Khandar._ He looked like violence, like darkness.  Very much the picture of a dangerous man.  They made a rather incongruous pair.  “According to the data the Hub decrypted, Khandar was on the shortlist to receive a formula Sutter was trying to develop.”

That didn’t sound good.  Natasha was aware of Khandar.  He’d been near the top of SHIELD’s most wanted list for a while.  The man was a savage, pure and simple, a black market arms dealer and tyrant.  He was very wealthy, very powerful, and very ambitious.  SHIELD had dispatched numerous STRIKE and other more covert missions over the last couple of years to capture him (the more preferable outcome) or kill him (the more likely one).  None of them had been even remotely successful.  “What sort of formula?” one of the STRIKE Team asked.  “What does it do?”

Maria’s expression tightened.  “Nothing good.  Sutter’s assistants did manage to scrub a chunk of the data from their mainframe before we got to it, but from what we can see, Sutter’s not just trying to create new bioweapons.”  She tapped a few places on her pad, and new information flooded the screens.  A great deal of it seemed to be documents detailing laboratory experiments for something called “SSS”.  There were a bunch of iterations of it, SSS-1 and upwards, _years_ of work.  Some of it had come from Harvard, if the university’s letterhead on the earliest documents was any indication.  Sutter had stolen a great deal of grant money from his post-doctoral advisor there.  Apparently he’d taken the work he’d done, too, and the resources, taken it all and his genius and run.

Besides the ridiculous number of documents, there was also some sort of three-dimensional representation of an extremely complex molecule.  Natasha was pretty proficient with technology; she could infiltrate computer systems almost as well as the world’s elite programmers and hackers.  And she knew a great deal about a great many things.  Politics.  History.  Pop culture.  _People._ Her time with the Red Room and SHIELD had made her world-wise in ways that nothing else ever would.  Science, though?  _Chemistry?_   Not her cup of tea.  She glanced at Steve, wondering if he had any inkling of understanding, but he looked as lost as she felt.  Maria was explaining further at least.  “Sutter and his people have been working on this for a while, funded by Khandar and a few others of the same ilk.  This chemical here seems to be the end result of whatever they’re trying to make.  The guys at the Hub were able to restore the files enough to get this representation.”

Rumlow looked irritated.  “You didn’t answer the question, Agent,” he said sternly.  “What does it do?”

Hill scowled a bit.  Natasha had no idea what had gotten into Rumlow that he had the audacity to take on so many higher ranking agents.  Going after her was one thing, but pissing off Hill?  Patently stupid.  “As far as we can tell…”  Maria tapped a few more spots on her tablet, and another molecule appeared beside the first.  The similarities were limited but obvious.  Natasha didn’t know if she was imagining it, but this second one seemed… a more perfect representation.  Elegant.  Balanced, even, a beautiful symmetry of atoms and bonds.  Hill sighed.  “He’s trying to make this.  It’s Doctor Erskine’s original formula from Project: Rebirth in 1943.”

Now _everyone_ turned to look at Steve.  Steve himself seemed reserved, staring at the two images, one of the substance that had transformed him from a sick, frail boy to a super soldier and the other clearly a poor man’s replicate.  “The original formula was lost,” he said firmly.

“What you see here is the best approximation of it that SHIELD has been able to derive from your blood samples and Erskine’s original notes,” Hill explained.  Steve was even less pleased with that, and Natasha knew why.  There had been no shortage of people over the decades attempting to recreate Erskine’s formula.  It had only worked once successfully, on Steve himself.  The quest to do that again, however, to produce another or, God forbid, an _army_ of super soldiers, had driven many a man to ruin.  The secrets of the original serum were locked in Steve’s DNA, seemingly inseparable from Steve’s genetic material.  That was probably a good thing, because the idea of something this powerful, something that could be used to turn a man into a miracle (like Steve) or a monster (as had happened with the Red Skull during World War II), falling into the hands of evil was too disturbing.  Natasha felt ill at ease just staring at the twin molecules, the serum as it should be and whatever bastardization Sutter was making.  He wouldn’t be the first man to make the monster instead of the miracle, by accident or not.

“‘Super Soldier Steroid’ is what the SSS stands for,” Hill explained.  “Not a clever name but an appropriate one, according to the lab.  It’s an extremely potent enhancer of muscle mass, speed, strength, and agility.  From what we can tell, it also increases metabolism to alarming rates and confers increased cellular regeneration, just like Erskine’s serum.”  She quirked a tight smile.  “Sutter affectionately refers to it as ‘the juice’.”

“Clever,” Rumlow growled.

Rollins looked confused.  He hadn’t reached the obvious conclusions.  “I thought the super soldier serum couldn’t be recreated.”

“It can’t be,” Hill answered shortly.  “From what the people in BioMed R&D tell me, this formula probably has significant drawbacks.  They can only guess what at this point, but they think the effects will be transient at best and potentially unstable.  It’s more like an anabolic steroid than a serum.  Sutter’s trying to create steroids so souped up they can provide serum-like advantages, but it doesn’t seem like a match made in heaven.  Still, not having a direct sample of what he’s working on, it’s impossible to know more.  It could be more dangerous.  It could be less.”

One of the other members of STRIKE asked, “Are they testing this on people?”

“We don’t know,” Hill replied.  “Obviously there was no sign of enhanced fighters during the raid in South Africa.  However, by tracing Sutter’s funding we know he has other labs set up, mostly in the Middle East where it’s harder for the US Government and NATO to get at him.  He could have the enhanced subjects there.  One of the lab forms we were able to save indicated human testing was their next step, and it was dated weeks ago.”  Hill tightened her jaw, staring at SHIELD’s best soldiers and brightest agents.  “I don’t think I need to tell you, but if Sutter’s formula works, we could have a serious situation on our hands, not unlike what happened last year with the Mandarin and Extremis.  We need to get a handle on this immediately before Sutter sets up shop anywhere else.  Khandar’s holed up outside of Dubai and holed up good.  We got word this morning from an embedded CIA agent there that he’s actively recruiting mercs and disavowed soldiers for, what he called it, a ‘new army’.”

“He’s pulling in volunteers for Sutter’s experiments,” Steve surmised grimly.

Hill nodded.  “It looks that way, Captain.  In all likelihood, they have already deployed the formula or at least started to test it.”  That was even more disturbing.  “The mission is two-fold.  First, we have a chance to capture Khandar as well as Sutter, so let’s get them both.  Alive.”  She gave the STRIKE Team a pointed look that couldn’t be construed as anything other than a warning.  “Second, Director Fury wants a sample of Sutter’s formula so we can deconstruct what it is he’s done and how he managed to do it.  It might be the case at this point that the best sample we can get will come from a subject in his study.”

“I doubt they’ll willingly surrender,” someone grumbled.

“Which is why R&D is sending some new restraints fresh out of the lab,” Maria declared.  She brought up an image.  They were thick handcuffs, perhaps an inch wide around the wrists.  “Stark Industries developed these for military use a while back, and Stark was kind enough to beef them up when it became obvious SHIELD could be dealing with super powered demigods and maniacal fire zombies on a regular basis.  They’re magnetic cuffs, but they can be used with a reinforced chain to increase mobility and comfort.  The left side of the left cuff is equipped with a fingerprint scanner, and only the fingerprints coded before use will unlock them.”

“How do you know these will hold whatever super soldiers they’ve cooked up?” Rollins asked.

“Because our resident super soldier tested them a few weeks ago.”  Maria gave a thin smile and a nod at Steve.  Natasha glanced him in surprise.  He hadn’t told her about that.  Well, maybe he had.  She knew he’d spent some time with Stark recently, and Sitwell had attended that meeting, so she supposed that made sense, that he’d been beta-testing Stark’s new tech.  Steve gave a little shrug and a crooked smile.  Maria nodded, drawing Natasha’s attention again.  “They’ll hold.”

As the brief continued, Maria began to cover the details they had about Khandar’s stronghold, which was not far from the modern extravagance of Dubai itself.  How many men they thought the terrorist had at his disposal.  The layout of his compound from satellite imaging.  The numbers and kinds of weapons that could be in his arsenal.  The Deputy Director laid out an assault plan, using the blunt force of the STRIKE Team to lead the infiltration and Captain America to secure the prisoners as possible.  Stark had been able to supply SHIELD with only two sets of cuffs; apparently the metallic alloy he was using to construct them was a bit difficult to manufacture, but he’d assured SHIELD (with his typical “fuck-off” attitude) that he’d have a lot more soon.  Therefore, one set of cuffs would be in Rumlow’s possession and the other would be in Steve’s.  With the STRIKE Team in support, they would be in charge of shutting down Khandar’s defenses, defeating and arresting the super soldiers if there were any, arresting Khandar himself, and Natasha would focus on capturing Sutter.

Natasha listened to it all, digesting her task, but as she did, something heavy settled in the pit of her stomach.  Her eyes kept drifting back to the picture of Sutter’s banal face.  She particularly disliked dealing with situations like these, where mad scientists were screwing around with things they didn’t understand and couldn’t begin to control.  Men with guns, even lots of men with lots of guns, were so much easier to stop.  Men were easier to understand.  Although motivations were motivations…  “What do we know about Sutter?” she asked.

Everyone turned to look at her now, as if the mere fact she was _speaking_ was suddenly astounding.  The weight of so many gazes – questioning and wondering and accusing and who knew what else – on her was a little staggering, and she felt for a moment like she was being shoved down into her chair.  She sat a bit straighter and refused to be cowed.  _Nothing_ was different.  This was any other mission brief, and she was Black Widow, and these people could go screw themselves.  “The workup on him.  Do we–”

“It was part of the brief for the last mission,” Maria declared, though not unkindly.  Arresting Sutter had been one of many goals for the op in South Africa, shutting down the facility, taking any data, and securing the bioweapons also equally important.  And Natasha hadn’t been in charge of capturing Sutter or any of his people.  That had fallen to the STRIKE Team.  So, yes, she’d been given the same dossier on the man, but, no, she hadn’t read it very carefully.  At the time, it hadn’t seemed very important.

Now it was.  And, knowingly or not, Hill was emphasizing the perception that Natasha wasn’t on top of her game.  “For those of us who weren’t tasked with capturing him, maybe we can go over it again,” Natasha said slowly.  It wasn’t a question.  And Maria was smart enough to realize that the small details could sometimes be important.

But the damage had already been done.  “I don’t see how it matters, ma’am,” Rumlow declared, sitting up in his chair in a sudden show of interest and professionalism.  “It’s not essential to the mission directives.”

Natasha gritted her teeth.  “It might matter,” she replied evenly, “so it’s worth discussing.”

Rumlow wasn’t going to back down.  “He’s a nobody.  He’ll probably piss his pants once he realizes we’ve caught up with him.  I doubt he’ll pose any threat.”

“He’s obviously dangerous if he’s capable of making a super serum.”

“He’s a _science geek_ ,” Rumlow corrected with a sneer.  There was a murmur of agreement throughout the STRIKE Team.  That wasn’t surprising.  They were pretty much Rumlow’s lackeys, more loyal to him than anyone else.  Even more emboldened, Rumlow turned around to look at Natasha, challenging her.  “What, Widow, you don’t think you can handle taking him in without knowing how many degrees in Dungeons and Dragons he’s got?  Can’t slap the cuffs on him without reading his lonely life story?”

Natasha struggled to keep her cool.  She _knew_ Rumlow was doing this to mess with her.  _She knew it._    But it was so hard not to fall into his trap.  “If this is my responsibility, I want all the information we have available so I can do my _job._ ”

Rumlow’s sneer turned gleeful.  “Your job, huh.  Don’t think you need to know _anything_ to do that.”  _Holy shit._   He hadn’t just said that, had he?  In a mission brief?  In front of their peers and colleagues?  In front of their boss?  _In front of Steve?_

She was so shocked that she couldn’t even think to be angry or embarrassed.  Thankfully, Hill rescued her.  “Alright, enough.  Romanoff, I’ll make sure the workup on Sutter from the previous mission is included in your briefing packet.  You can review it in flight.  You all have an hour to gear up.  Let’s get this done.  Clear?”  There were curt nods.  “Any questions?”  Hill waited a moment, sweeping her gaze over the room which had fallen into cool, calm stoicism.  “Dismissed.”

Chairs scraping on the floor resounded as everyone got up and left to do his or her mission prep.  Once most the room had cleared with only a few people milling about and chatting softly, Steve laid his hand over Natasha’s where she’d gripped her knee.  He was stiff with worry and anger.  “Nat?” he murmured in a low tone only she could hear.   “You okay?”

Not in the least.  She was stiff, too, with shock at what Rumlow had said, how he’d reduced her to… to a whore and a slut and nothing better than that.  Her words wouldn’t come.  Her thoughts were spinning like wheels without traction, nothing sticking, nothing moving forward.  She was just… limp.

A shadow strolled by her.  She didn’t need to look up to know who it was.  Before she could even jerk away, Rumlow was leaning next to her as he passed behind.  “Forget pissing his pants.  He’ll probably _cream_ ’em seeing you coming.”

Steve was up in a flash, up and snatching Rumlow’s shoulder and roughly slamming him into the wall of the back of the room.  The few remaining occupants, Hill included, jerked in shock and alarm.  Viciously Steve pressed his forearm across Rumlow’s vulnerable neck and shoved him hard into the dented drywall.  There was no way the STRIKE commander could fight back or escape.  Steve was bigger, stronger, faster.  A better fighter.  _Captain America._

But Steve’s face wasn’t _at all_ the cool, composed visage of Captain America.  He was wrathful, more openly threatening and violent than Natasha had _ever_ seen.  Every impressive, _enhanced_ muscle in his body was coiled, ready to attack.  Ready to _hurt._   Right now, she wasn’t certain he’d hold back.

The remaining members of the STRIKE Team were crowded around now.  Rumlow choked under the pressure of Steve’s arm, squirming in surprise.  He cracked a sloppy, strained grin.  Even as outgunned as he was and even with terror bright in his eyes, he was going further, crude and crass and every bit the asshole they knew he was.  “What’sa matter, Cap?  Don’t like the truth?  Don’t like knowing what your girlfriend does to make her mark?”

Steve _snarled_ , almost crushing Rumlow’s neck and raising his free fist to strike.

“Captain!” Hill barked, but even that wasn’t enough to make Steve back down right away.  He did stop, though.  He was motionless an endless moment, undaunted and unyielding, glaring murder at Rumlow.  And Hill probably knew enough about what Rumlow had been doing to let that moment continue as long as possible before warning more firmly.  “Captain, _now._ ”

Steve finally let him go, dropping Rumlow with a rough shove and taking a couple steps back.  His chest was heaving with anger, his face locked into a scowl.  Rumlow spent a second righting himself, glancing among Rollins and his other men.  “Let’s move out,” he said once he was cooler.  Suddenly the vindictive prick had been replaced by the hardened soldier.  Underneath the veneer, it was pretty damn obvious he was scared, though, and annoyed, like he hadn’t anticipated Steve attacking him, like he hadn’t imagined anyone would dare come to Natasha’s defense.  “We have our orders.”

The STRIKE Team filed out of the room.  Hill gave Steve a disapproving (but not unsympathetic) look, but she saved her lecture, shaking her head and walking away.  Steve relaxed bit by bit, his face slowly loosening from its hard glower.  Then he turned, glancing around frantically.  “Nat?  Natasha?”

But Natasha only caught a glimpse of his sad blue eyes while she was bolting out the door.

* * *

She couldn’t get her head in the game.

_God, what the hell is wrong with me?_

The quinjet vibrated with turbulence as it streaked across the Arabian Sea toward Dubai.  She closed her eyes and tried not to let it bother her.  Normally it didn’t.  _Normally._   That seemed to be the phrase of late, like there was a sudden demarcation in her life.  Before Steve had told her the truth about sex and after.  There’d been other such boundaries that marked moments in her life when things had changed.  Clint saving her from the Red Room.  Meeting Steve and becoming an Avenger.  Falling in love with Steve.  Sleeping with Steve.  But these had all been _major_ changes, the sort where she was fundamentally altered inside and out, remade and repurposed.  This…  This was Steve’s little white lie, which he had told for _her_ benefit, getting blown _way_ out of proportion.

How in the world was Steve telling her he’d never experienced enough orgasms with her to feel satisfied causing this much freaking _damage?_

“Look alive!” Rumlow bellowed over the din as they began their descent.  “Drop in five!”

Natasha swallowed down the burn of bile as her stomach clenched its way through the rough jostling of the aircraft.  This was so stupid.  So fucking absolutely _stupid._ She’d done dozens and dozens of night drops before, dozens and dozens of missions just like this and in shittier conditions than this with the same or more danger ahead of her, and she’d never felt so unsteady.  Reading for the duration of the flight out from DC to the helicarrier where it had been aloft over the Indian Ocean hadn’t helped her motion sickness.  She’d delved into the dossier on Sutter.  Her efforts had been under the pretense of being thorough.  Mostly she’d wanted to appear busy so Steve (and everyone else) would leave her alone.  After they’d left DC, the mere thought of having to be sociable had been downright upsetting.  She knew it was pathetic and cowardly, but she didn’t think she had it in her to be harassed by Rumlow or comforted by Steve.  Granted, those were on opposite ends of the spectrum, but both were pretty undeniable reminders of how messed up she was right now.  And she could sense them both itching to do it, Rumlow glancing at her predatorily once or twice like he was just waiting for an opening, and Steve trying to be close without being obvious about it.

Steve was worried, really worried, and she felt bad for ignoring that.  He’d hovered around her in some way, shape, or form for most of the flight, planting himself pretty purposefully between her and Rumlow (and the rest of the STRIKE Team for that matter) like _that_ was his mission instead of leading the upcoming assault.  His was concern almost a palpable thing it was so strong.  She knew how much he loved her.  With all the doubt in her head this last week, _that_ had never been among her anxieties.  And he was accustomed to giving her space when she needed it.  As close as they were, there were still times when she wanted that, when closing down for a moment and seeking the stoicism and emotional detachment ingrained in her from the Red Room was how she dealt with a difficult mission or trouble at work.  He was always patient with her, allowing her that even if it wasn’t the way he liked to handle problems.  He understood.

She prayed he’d understand now that her confidence felt like it was hanging by a thread.

So Rumlow had watched and Steve had guarded and she had studied the mission notes.  Sutter’s dossier had kept her mind off her problems at any rate, even if it wasn’t terribly interesting reading.  The guy’s life had been rather mundane until recently.  SHIELD had files that went all the way back to the 1980s, to his childhood and his time spent in elementary school.  He’d been born in 1984 in Trenton, New Jersey.  His family had been poor, and he’d come from something of a broken home.  Still, he’d excelled in his coursework, particularly math and science.  Aptitude and IQ testing had indicated genius-level intellect.  He’d graduated from high school at seventeen and gained early acceptance into numerous colleges, many with full scholarships.  However, he’d chosen Harvard despite the fact it had earned him a significant pile of student loan debt.  He’d done well there, too, earning great grades.  He’d graduated Summa Cum Laude and immediately entered a combined MD/PhD program.  The MD portion had been troublesome for him, though not so much from a knowledge aspect.  There were numerous notes from different advisors and such, all saying that, while Sutter had terrific and almost encyclopedic knowledge, his people skills were decidedly lacking.  He was arrogant and very eager to demonstrate how much he knew and how well he knew it.  That didn’t translate well to patient care.  Still, he’d polished off those degrees with the same success as everything else.

From there he’d joined Harvard’s research staff, focusing on biochemistry, neurochemistry, and immunology.  And, again, he’d gotten himself in with the best mentors, the best labs, worked on the best projects and grants.  And, _again_ , there were a bunch of notes about how his attitude was less than stellar.  Not a team player.  Rude and demanding perfection (and the opportunities to achieve it).  Seemingly trying to compensate for something.  Natasha had spent a few minutes just looking at the pictures they had of him.  The one from the debrief was quite a few years old, taken during his days as a graduate student.  He’d been… _nerdy_ then and nerdy throughout primary school, awkward and lonely but nicer, if the reports from his teachers and friends were any indication.  Somewhere during college he’d decided it was better to be popular, so he’d tried to fit in with the “cool crowd” (did anyone even say that anymore?).  That was how the more recent pictures looked.  It was like watching a man reinvent himself.  He’d changed his hair and the way he dressed.  Gotten contacts.  Taken care of his acne.  Polished himself up to _appear_ like a clean-cut rich man.  Like someone who _belonged_.

This guy wanted the best, to be the best, and he wanted it to come easy.

“Two minutes until the drop zone!” one of the quinjet pilots bellowed.

Rumlow passed by Natasha as he checked on his men.  “You planning on joining us, Romanoff?” he said sharply, and Natasha jolted from her thoughts.  She glared, but he was already moving on.  “Cap, wear a chute this time!  No fucking theatrics!”

Steve had already been scowling at him (had been the entire flight when he hadn’t been watching Natasha with worry bright in his eyes), so it didn’t take much for him to scowl harder.  He didn’t say anything, adjusting the straps of his parachute and his shield one last time before stepping close to Natasha.  He looked like he wanted to check her harness, too, but she was already doing that, trying to hide how unsettled she was.  The last thing she needed was Steve watching her instead of getting his mission objectives finished.  He seemed like he wanted to say something amidst the noise of the back ramp of the jet opening and the rest of the STRIKE Team getting ready, standing there and staring at her with dark, anxious eyes.  But he didn’t speak, only briefly tugging her close and sliding the backs of his fingers down her cheek.  They’d agreed early on that there’d be no PDA at work; it was too compromising (not that it had mattered, since everyone had found out anyway, but still) and too unprofessional (which disagreed with them both.  They were Avengers, SHIELD agents, and they took pride in what they did.  Kissing and holding hands and getting all doe-eyed at each other on the job had no place in that).  This time, he wanted it, wanted to comfort her for just a split second, and she wanted it, too.  She took his hand from her cheek and nodded, forcing a hint of a smile.  _It’s okay.  I’m okay._

_No big deal._

Then he was turning and heading to the back of the jet where the ramp was down and the STRIKE Team was seconds from deploying.  “Keep it tight!” he shouted over the din.  “Once we get to the compound, I’ll run point.  Engage only when necessary until we’re in position.  Clear?”  A series of affirmations filled the back of the fuselage before being lost to the din of the air rushing by.  As Natasha came closer, she could see the jet had descended to a few thousand feet.  They were snaking low through the mountains, trying to avoid detection.  Ahead were the rolling hills of sand in the eastern deserts of the United Arab Emirates.  The terrain was glowing pristinely white under the moonlight the closer they got to Dubai.  Khandar’s complex was just before there, a few miles off, nestled in the dunes near an oasis by the mountains.  They’d drop near it, hustle the rest of the distance, and storm the compound.  It should be a simple operation.

“Drop zone!” cried the pilot over comms.  The mountains abruptly disappeared beneath them.  “Go!”

“Out we go, STRIKE!” Rumlow ordered, and the black ops team was leaping out the back of the quinjet.  Natasha watched Steve jump, one of the first out and only discernible because the pale moonlight struck his shield.  She stepped closer.  Rollins was waiting for the rest of the team to clear, and when he saw her, he narrowed his eyes.  He didn’t say anything, though, and she defiantly glared right given the unspoken implication she couldn’t handle this.  Then she subtly drew a deep breath, told herself yet again to a get a goddamn grip, and jumped.

Natasha had never much liked the feeling of falling.  It didn’t scare her, but she found it unnerving.  As the wind ripped at her hair and skin, as the sand rushed up to meet her, she tried not to think, tried not to relate this freefall to her life at the moment.  It was all too easy to do it.  She was freefalling from a high she’d been on since realizing she loved Steve and Steve loved her.  Freefalling to the depths of a cold, hard reality. 

_“I’ve never pleased you?  Never?  Not all the times we’ve had sex?”_

_“When you’re done, you’re done.  You shouldn’t have to keep going just for me.  I don’t need you to do that.”_

_“Guess Cap doesn’t need you anymore.”_

_“What, did you suddenly realize you’re dating Captain America?”_

_He doesn’t need you._

No.  _Stupid bullshit!_   She wiped her mind, deployed her chute, and glided down to land next to the rest of her team.

As much as Rumlow was a complete asshole, he was damn good at his job.  In no time at all, the STRIKE soldiers had secured their gear and were moving in cover of darkness across the desert.  Trudging through sand wasn’t easy, but at least with the night heavy upon the land it wasn’t so hot.  The soldiers were absolutely silent as they briskly walked the distance, rifles ready and eyes sharp.  It didn’t seem as though their approach had been detected, but there was no sense in being sloppy.  Rumlow led the formation, precise in his steps and very confident, and Steve brought up the rear.  Natasha stayed fairly close to him (since when did _that_ bring her this much comfort on an op?), helping him keep watch around them.  Maybe a half an hour after the drop, they reached the compound.

It was extravagant.  Natasha had come to expect that from the sort of man Khandar was.  She’d seen, visited, and raided quite a few such complexes owned by warlords and terrorists in the past.  Part base of operations, part stronghold, part mansion.  Overly wealthy and overly opulent and overly conceited.  The STRIKE Team was fleet in the darkness, moving like a well-oiled machine as they split up to scale the stone wall surrounding the compound.  The barricade was nearly twenty feet high, and there were cameras on the corners.  Rumlow already had people dispatching them, sharpshooters armed with SHIELD tech that disrupted electrical feeds, and the rest of the assault team was slipping night-vision goggles on and readying their guns.

Not Steve, though.  As the team silently and stealthily reached the outside of the wall, he nodded to Natasha.  Crouching, he cupped his hands, and she took a bit of a running start before planting her foot in his grip.  Silently, he threw her up and over.

They didn’t have exact intel on Khandar’s security forces, so there was always a chance the wall could be electrified or she could be landing in the midst of a veritable army.  With a base of operations this remote, though, experience (and the unlikelihood of being attacked) dictated that wouldn’t be the case.  Flipping, she landed quietly in the grass on the other side of the wall.  Satellite imaging had indicated there was a small storehouse here, and it nicely provided some cover as she darted through the shadows and deeper into the yard.  Pressing her back to the side of the building, she leaned around its corner to quickly glance around.  There were two men walking the perimeter on this side with a great deal more closer to the house.  The house itself was adjacent to the mountains and up a slight hill, which meant their approach might be seen if they weren’t careful.  Thankfully, though, there was plenty of cover between the wall and the estate.  Fountains and gardens.  Again overly extravagant and opulent and all that.  Lucky for them.

Still, she needed to take out the perimeter guards first.  Silently.  They were chatting in Arabic as they walked, relaxed and smoking a couple of cigarettes.  She tucked herself back into the shadows and waited.  Of course, she supposed there was a chance these two men could be enhanced by Sutter’s steroids or serum or whatever the hell it was.  Something told her it wasn’t very likely.  “Widow, status?”  That was Rumlow’s impatient voice hissing over the comm link in her ear.  He’d kindly given her all of a minute to get the job done.  How generous.

“Stand by,” she snapped in a low tone.  She edged closer, forcing herself to relax and be patient until they passed so she could take them from behind.  That would be best, right?  Grab one, break his neck, and drop the other before he could fire his weapon or signal for help or even register what was happening.  She could do that.  She’d done it _thousands_ of times.  So it was easy.  Right?  She found herself doubting for a second or two, like motions ingrained into her muscles and perfected by experience were suddenly new, uncertain, and flawed.  That alone was so off-putting that it made her doubt _more_ and hesitate _more_ and _Goddamn it stop it what’s the matter with you stop it!_   She snarled under her breath at herself when she focused again and saw she’d nearly missed her opportunity with her bullshit.  Taking a steadying breath, she attacked.  Leapt onto the back of the first man.  Broke his neck.  Swung his falling body around with her thighs to knock his comrade down.  Rolled free and dropped him with a kick to the temple.

Simple.  Proud of herself, she smiled as she beheld their two limp bodies.  Then she dragged them quietly to the deeper shadows behind the storehouse.  “Clear,” she hissed into her comm link.

It took the STRIKE Team only a matter of seconds to grapple over the top of the wall.  They were like spiders, using ropes to raise themselves to the top and dropping soundlessly to the other side.  Steve came from the wall, his stealth suit nearly black in the darkness.  He glanced at the downed soldiers and gave her a satisfied nod.  She nodded back.  In what fucked up world was dispatching two armed thugs a cause for this amount of validation?  She didn’t know, and she ignored that tiny voice of dissent in the back of her head and let herself be glad she’d accomplished this much.

The STRIKE Team gathered for final orders.  They were few, quick, and softly spoken.  The approach would be silent.  Once Steve engaged, the others would follow.  In all likelihood, when they reached the estate, the enhanced soldiers would attack.  Steve and a portion of the STRIKE Team would contend with them.  The others would infiltrate the mansion and flush Khandar out, where Rumlow would arrest him (and anyone else with him).  And Natasha, with a few others, would watch the perimeter before heading in to capture Sutter.  With the quinjet in the mountains behind them and the helicarrier just off the coast, they had plenty of surveillance and air support.  Bases like these were difficult to besiege, but they were also difficult to escape.  It wasn’t like Khandar or Sutter would be able to flee without them stopping it.

With everyone on the same page, the soldiers made final weapons checks and broke into smaller groups.  Steve gave Natasha another nod, which only irritated her now.  She didn’t need any coddling.  _I’ve got this, Rogers_.Then he took off in a run across the fancy yard, his shield gleaming in the moonlight as he bounded over hedgerows and across bushes.  He was so fast, like a bright blur, and Natasha couldn’t help but be amazed for a second.

Then Rumlow paused at her side.  “Stay here,” he said again, even though Steve had already given her orders.  He glanced at her, his eyes glimmering cruelly in the night.  “I’ll let you know when it’s safe, doll.”

She jerked.  Just like in the breakroom the morning after the big revelation, she _knew_ there was no way that could be on purpose, no way he could know that “doll” was one of Steve’s many endearments for her (one of her favorites, in all honesty).  No way.  Steve never called her that anywhere but the safety of their apartment.  Well, once or twice he had on the rare occasion that they went out to dinner or a movie or the park or something – did Rumlow have some way of spying on them?  No.  Impossible.  She would have noticed.  No one could _spy_ on _her_.  She was Black Widow.  It was a coincidence, and he was a fucking asshole trying to dig into her, and _she knew that_.

But her blood still went cold and she still floundered just a bit as he turned and gestured his portion of the team to follow him into the assault.  Natasha gritted her teeth and settled in to watch and wait and try to convince herself she hadn’t been left behind.

* * *

She didn’t have to wait long at least.

You could always tell how well a mission was going by the number of explosions.  This one went from slow and well-organized to complete chaos with one really big one.

“Rogers!” Natasha barked into her comm link as she watched a good portion of the estate go up in flames.  All around the compound things were coming to life.  Lights.  Alarms.  Soldiers.  But the complex was too far away.  She couldn’t see _anything_ clearly from where she was.  This was more than irritating.  It was obnoxious, degrading, frustrating.  And tad terrifying because _no one_ was answering her.  “Rumlow!  Report!”

“Khandar’s got an arsenal!” Rumlow said with a gruff laugh.  The cracking of rifles filled the previously silent night, loud, staccato blasts that echoed off the mountains.  Natasha winced and shook her head, and the other two members of the STRIKE Team with her pressed closer.  “We’re taking heavy fire!”

 _No shit._   Natasha raced up the lawn a bit, trying to get a better vantage of what was happening.  The orange glow of the flames was bright against the mountains, and the gleam of it was making it hard to see anything beyond a bunch of shadows darting around on the ground.  “Do you need support?” she demanded.  There was no answer, nothing beyond another deafening blast that shook the complex enough that the sandy grass vibrated beneath her feet.  Men were screaming.  Worrying ratcheted through her – _Steve!_ – and she found herself asking again, more breathless.  “Do you need support?  Over!”

“Negative!” Rumlow snapped.  “Light them up!”

“Ramirez, Hunter, Webber, with me!”  That was Steve, and he sounded fine.  Irritated and a little stressed but definitely not hurt.  Natasha breathed a small sigh of relief.  “I have eyes on Khandar.  No sign of any enhanced soldiers.”

“Maybe they haven’t made any,” Rollins offered, sounding a bit winded.

“Keep looking!”

“We’re inside the estate.”

“Copy that!”

“Khandar’s on the move!  We need the gate secured!”

“On it,” Natasha quickly declared.  She directed the STRIKE personnel with her to back up to the gate in a quick sprint, and when they arrived at the iron barricade, a firefight immediately broke out between them and the guards protecting the entrance.  The weight of her guns in her hands was ridiculously comforting as she drew them, rolled behind some sort of sculpture lining the main drive for cover, and waited for an opportunity to shoot back.  It came after bullets finished ripping chunks of marble away, and she twisted around, her eyes rapidly seeking the targets in the guard houses.  A quick squeeze of each trigger had them dead, and the STRIKE soldiers handled anyone else.  “The gate’s secured.”

“Copy,” Steve responded.  He sounded more confused than irritated now.  “Still no sign of enhanced opponents.”  That didn’t make sense, not with SHIELD attacking and Captain America leading the charge.  That sort of thing was usually met with one’s _best_ weapons, and so far they’d only faced the normal sort of weapons (or at least it sounded that way).  Maybe Rollins was right and they hadn’t used Sutter’s super juice on anyone yet.  It was fortunate, and she suddenly felt better.  It meant the mission would be like any other run-of-the-mill mission of this type.

“He’s making a break for it!”

“Stop him!  Cap!”

“Rogers is on him.”

“Push forward!” Rumlow returned.  “Fucking squash them.  Don’t let them get away!”

“Cap’s got him!  Cap’s got ’em all!”

“Does anyone have a location on Sutter?” she asked.  The battle chatter was so chaotic at this point that it was getting difficult to follow.  Her question was ignored amidst the relaying of orders between Rumlow and Steve.  Something else detonated ahead, and when the light from the blast splayed over the estate, she could see the assault team had gone much deeper in just these few minutes.  Someone was breathing a soft _wow_ and someone else was whooping and someone else was letting out a string of surprised but relieved expletives.  Steve was cutting through the resistance like a warm knife through butter.  _Again._   She could just picture it, how positively _incredible_ he was.  A one-man army.

That irritated her, and she felt shitty for being jealous, but there’d been a time when he’d been slower and less certain of himself and restrained because he hadn’t known what he’d been doing.  There’d been a time when _she’d_ led the charge, when _she’d_ cut through the resistance, when _she’d_ been the one the other agents had been watching and whispering about in awe.  She’d been the best.  And she’d done all that _without_ the super soldier serum.

God, that made her feel even shittier, and she was as angry at herself as she was at everyone else for ignoring her.  “Repeat: does anyone have a location on Sutter?” she snapped again, not doing anything to hide the annoyance in her voice.

There was a pause.  “That’s a negative, Widow.”

“Stay here,” Natasha barked at the men with her.  “Hold the gate.”  Then she sprinted across the yard.  This was her job, her assigned directive.  Capture the mad scientist.  Well, she was going to make sure _her_ part of this got done.

She was agile and fast as she thundered across the yard.  The soldiers who’d been left alive by STRIKE and who weren’t running for their lives at this point came at her.  She was ruthless, powered by her anger at this whole damn situation.  Her fists flew, Widow’s Bite crackling and shocking.  Her boots slammed into chests and bellies and necks.  Her guns sang.  None of these men stood a chance against her.  It felt _good_ to fight like she always fought, fast and confident and unstoppable, bringing down their enemies like no one else could.  She was still Black Widow.

Eventually she reached the estate.  It had probably been beautiful a few minutes ago, with a palatial home against an elegant, lavish cul-de-sac surrounded by desert blooms and ornate gardening (which certainly had cost a fortune to maintain in this climate).  Right now it was burning, as well as most of the front of the building.  And people were running out.  Servants mostly, it seemed, unarmed and terrified.  A few women, Khandar’s wife and daughters (or not – that wasn’t worth thinking about right now).  Other personnel.  Some of the STRIKE Team was there, and over the comm link, Natasha heard the helicarrier was dispatching reinforcements to contend with prisoners.  She scanned the crowd, figuring Sutter would stick out like a sore thumb.

She was right.  A flash of red hair and very pale skin caught her eye on the south side of the estate.  She didn’t hesitate, flying across the cul-de-sac, vaulting over yet another few rows of shrubs and plants to reach him.  He caught sight of her coming, and he ran faster, a briefcase in hand.  _His super steroid._   Narrowing her eyes, Natasha forced more speed out of herself.  God, he was quick.  He was already at a building alongside the main estate, one that wasn’t one quite so destroyed.  It was a garage.  _No._   If he got away with his formula…

She wasn’t letting that happen.  “Sutter!” she shouted.  “John Sutter, stop!”  He stopped and turned.  Looked directly at her for a second.  His unruly hair looked gunky from the amount of gel needed to keep it slick.  His face was overly coated, almost made up, too tanned and too perfect to be natural.  His clothes were ridiculously expensive, too, showy for the sake of showy.  And he stared at her, panicked.  Then…  Then _pleased._

For a second, she considered calling in support.  There were other STRIKE soldiers handling the evacuating crowd who could help her.  And it sounded like the situation inside the estate was stabilizing; Steve declared over the comm link that he had Khandar in custody.  There was still no sign of enhanced soldiers, which made sense now since it was pretty obvious Sutter had his formula with him.  Help could be spared.

But she didn’t call anyone.  She could handle this.  She pointed her gun right at him and smoothly said, “John Sutter, you’re under arrest by the authority of the Strategic Homeland Interven – _stop!_ ”  He took off, bolting to the garage.  There was a jeep parked outside, and Sutter was surprisingly lithe and coordinated as he jumped over the driver’s door and into the seat.  Natasha growled in frustration and surprise – _so much for pissing his pants.  Or otherwise_ – and took off after him.  Sutter tossed his briefcase into the passenger seat and turned the car on.  The engine roared to life, and then he was barreling toward the cul-de-sac.

 _Shit._   Natasha shot at him as he sped toward her, but her bullets did nothing but uselessly pepper the hood.  Sutter stared right at her and gunned it, careening toward her and clearly intending to run her down.  She fired until her magazine was spent, standing her ground despite the threat wildly bearing down on her.  Then she tossed her empty gun and jumped up and onto the hood.

He swore in surprise, veering sharply to the left and nearly into the crowd of people evacuating.  Women screamed, and quite a few people barely leapt out of the way in time to avoid being struck.  Natasha grabbed the top of the windshield and hung on, grinding her teeth as her body was whipped violently about.  She refused to let go – _you’re not getting away!_ – as the vehicle sped over the lawn, bouncing and destroying the pristine landscaping as it went.  Statues shattered against the car, raining shards of marble down on her.  Flowers and plants were pulverized.  Sutter drove right in through a pool, smashing into the side of one of its ornate fountains, and Natasha got a mouthful of water as she was sprayed.  Everything immediately went slick, and when he suddenly turned right, she slid precariously.  Her heart seized in shock, and she barely hung on.  Barely.  Soaked and furious, she struggled for a better grip.

And once she secured one, she hauled herself up and reached around the windshield, trying to grab for Sutter’s head or throat.  He flailed, struggling, driving more wildly.  With the car shuddering so unpredictably, it was hard for her to get a decent hold of him.  “Stop!” she demanded.  “Stop now!”  She finally latched onto his arm, pulling with everything she had.  She couldn’t get his hand off the wheel.  _What?_ When she pressed her thumb down into her glove, Widow’s Bite surged with a bright flash of blue, and the jolt zapped him.  It had to have, but he didn’t react, didn’t move.  Didn’t let go.  _What the hell?_

She had no time to wonder.  He wrenched the car over the uneven yard yet again, and this time she wasn’t ready.  She lost her hold on the hood and windshield and tumbled to the driver’s side.  Her fingers digging into his arm was all that kept her from falling as she banged roughly against the driver’s door.  She expected a cry of pain or something from him; she was practically wrenching his arm a way it was not meant to turn.  But there was nothing she could hear.  He was still maniacally swerving, trying to dislodge her.  Though the world was a blurry mess of shadows and the light from the fire behind them, Natasha could clearly see the gate ahead.  They were fast approaching it.  In a matter of seconds, they were going to crash, and Sutter stepped harder on the gas.  He was absolutely crazy!

Horror pounded through her, and she yanked herself away, letting go of his arm and rolling to the ground.  The impact hurt, sand and stone scraping and ripping at her skin as she slammed into the earth.  Still, it was preferable to what she saw happen as Sutter twisted the car and crashed into the sealed gate on the driver’s side.  She would have been crushed.

Growling in annoyance, Natasha smoothly picked herself up.  She ignored the plethora of tender bruises and burns, reaching for the back holster on her belt for another gun.  Sutter sprung from the driver’s seat like he hadn’t just violently crashed – _what?_ – and grabbed for his briefcase, apparently not hurt despite the fact that the jeep was pretty well crumpled.  And, apparently, he was completely undaunted as the members of the STRIKE Team she’d left to guard the gate came at him.  He swung his briefcase in a wide arc, and it smacked one of the soldiers in the head.  Normally that would have meant nothing.

Not this time.  The man went down like a sack of potatoes, heavy and limp.  Natasha shook her head, shocked beyond rational thought.  The other soldier shouted a warning at Sutter, which Sutter entirely ignored _._   It was a blur, how quick he was, jumping off the jeep and right onto the STRIKE soldier.  The guy collapsed under the extra weight, his rifle going off and shooting at the sky as he fell.  Sutter pinned him and punched him.  Natasha could have sworn she heard bones crack.

Then Sutter stood.  He stared right at her, still unintimidated despite the fact that she had her gun pointed right at him again.  His suitcase was clasped in front of his chest.  “Black Widow, right?”

His tone was so casual that it served only to further compound how freaking unbelievable this was.  Natasha’s brain was still skipping, off the rails with what was happening, until she managed to get herself together enough to speak.  “Surrender now,” she warned.

“Or what?”  He smiled.  It looked oily, arrogant, and more than a tad insane.  “I don’t think you can stop me.”  The urge to shoot this asshole just to get that damn smug sneer off his face was almost too much.  She was pretty sick and tired of men sneering at her, to be honest.  “Kinda sad that you’re even an Avenger.  I mean, everyone else is pretty powerful compared to you.”  Seriously?  _Seriously?_   “Now Captain America…  I just saw what he can do.  It’s impressive, that super serum.  Kinda jealous.”

Natasha lost her patience and stomped forward.  “I said: _surrender._ On your knees!”

“How about no?”  He was snide and condescending.  “Though that does kind of turn me on.”

Christ, was the universe out to get her?  Out to piss her off?  It was fucking well working!  She took another few heated steps closer until she was nearly to him, intending on shoving him down and grabbing the handcuffs from her belt and showing this guy just how impressive she was.  But just as she made to grab his arm, she saw something there, something metallic partially hidden by his sleeve.  She stopped and stared, perplexed.  It was some sort of contraption, strapped around his wrist and again at his elbow, and a long vial ran the length of it, visible but protected by some sort of transparent plastic.  Inside the tube there was a red liquid.  That had to the super soldier steroid.  The juice.

 _God._   Apparently there _was_ an enhanced individual involved with this.  It just wasn’t a soldier.  “You experimented on yourself,” Natasha whispered.

“Smart at least,” Sutter said.  “Smart and stunning.  That’s probably why people like you, right?  Why you’re popular?  Why you made it to where you are?  Smarts matter.  Beauty matters.  But not as much as being the best.”

She was so lost she was asking before she could stop herself.  “At what?”

Sutter smiled.  “Everything.”  Then he swung up his suitcase.  It broke open when it hit Natasha across the temple with far more force than a normal man could muster.  Pain exploded along the side of her face, and the next thing she knew, she was flying through the air, flying and spinning and tumbling.  She hit the ground hard and rolled onto her back before coming to a sharp, painful stop.  Her brain felt rattled in her skull, battered so badly that unconsciousness was quickly consuming her.  The last thing she saw was the flutter of papers all around her and Sutter’s awful smile before he turned and _jumped_ clear over the wall.

And the last thing she heard was Steve’s voice over comms, asking her if she needed him.

* * *

As low as she’d felt all week, _this_ was so much worse.

Natasha stood in the cramped stall of the shower in her quarters about the helicarrier.  The hot spray blasted over her, and it should have been comforting, a pleasant balm to her aching head and bruised body.  A nice way to wash away the sweat and soot and sand from the mission.  But she hardly felt it.  She hardly felt anything.  She was numb, inside and out.  Too shocked to process anything.  Too lost to care.  Too trampled and beaten and downright defeated.

That was the word.  _Defeated._

Sutter had escaped.  After he’d dropped her, she’d opened her eyes to Steve’s blurry, horrified face looking down on her, his hands cupping her face and his eyes filled with relief.  While she’d been unconscious, SHIELD had secured the compound.  Medical had been there, assisting with the casualties.  There hadn’t been many, at least not of the relative innocents who worked in Khandar’s compound unknowingly.  No one in the STRIKE Team had been hurt except her and the two men with her.  Again, that should have been a comfort, but it was hard to feel anything other than dismay at the fact that Sutter had gotten away.  And that briefcase she’d thought for sure had had his super steroid in it?  Turned out it only had papers.  His scientific articles, it seemed.  So no Sutter.  No sample of his steroid.  Aside from arresting Khandar and shutting down his operation, their team had failed in its objectives.

Of course, that hadn’t been her fault.  Not strictly.  As the reinforcements had swarmed the remains of the estate and it became very obvious there were _no_ enhanced soldiers among the prisoners, more and more attention had turned to Sutter.  He’d experimented on himself.  _He_ was enhanced.  That explained how he had run so fast, been so strong, _hit so hard._   How he’d managed to jump over the perimeter wall.  SHIELD techs had quickly gone in to drain what data they could from the labs they’d finally located in the compound’s basement, but it was pretty obvious that the person they’d written off as a nerdy scientist who’d be easy to catch was the very person on whom they should have focused from the beginning.

And Rumlow, being Rumlow, had gone after her with a vengeance.  After looking for excuses and opportunities for days, this had been too golden to pass up.  He’d been furious that the op had been botched.  It didn’t matter that, yet again, the intel had been wrong (or at least incomplete).  It didn’t matter that Natasha had stood no chance of apprehending Sutter.  Not single-handedly.  Not given he’d been stronger and faster and _better_ than her.  Any sort of melee, even with him untrained, would have likely ended in her losing.  Add to that the fact that the revelation that he was super juicing himself had taken her completely by surprise and the whole situation had been invariably doomed.  But Rumlow hadn’t cared.  While Natasha had sat in the back of the quinjet, nursing a splitting headache with an ice pack pressed to her tender temple, the bastard had gone off on her.  _“Why didn’t you call for backup?  Huh?  If you knew something wasn’t right, why didn’t you–”_

 _“Back off,”_ Steve had snapped, glaring at the other man and the rest of the STRIKE Team surrounding them from where he’d been crouching in front of her.  _“It was her call to make, and she made the best one she could.”_

_“Bullshit, Cap!  Stop covering for her!  She fucked up!  She fucked the op!”_

_“Back off,”_ Steve had snarled again, rising to his full impressive height.  _“That’s a goddamn order!”_

Rumlow had been right in Steve’s face, eyes wild, face the picture of barely restrained rage.  _“Must be good to be screwing the captain,”_ he’d taunted.  _“Doesn’t matter how much you suck at your job as long as you’re great at sucking his–”_

 _“Don’t you dare,”_ Steve had hissed. _“Stand down, or I’ll_ make _you.”_

Rumlow had backed off a little, but he’d continued on his rampage.  _“Jesus Christ!  Stop protecting her!”_

Steve never, ever would.  Rumlow didn’t realize just how much he was playing with fire.  _“She did her best, and that’s it.”_

Had she?  She thought back on it now, on how she’d felt sitting there while Steve and Rumlow had practically come to blows in front of her.  She’d _known_ right away that something about Sutter wasn’t right.  She’d considered calling in for backup.  And she hadn’t done it.  She’d been too angry and frustrated and desperate to prove _she was needed_ that she’d made a choice that maybe hadn’t been the best choice at the time.  Maybe it _was_ her fault, at least a little bit.  It was that sort of situation where the blame wasn’t really on her, but it was, too.  Practically and logically and realistically, no, but in every way it really mattered, _yes._

She wanted to cry.

“Nat?”

She opened her eyes.  Apparently she’d leaned into the wall of the shower, and her forehead ached even more from bracing it against the fiberglass.  And, apparently, she’d been in here a while, because the water was fairly lukewarm and the steam was pretty much gone.  She noticed other things now, too, like how much her head hurt.  A splitting headache didn’t describe this at all.  She had a mild concussion, nothing too serious.  At Steve’s insistence, she’d already had a CT and a full medical work-up, and she was fine.  Nothing she hadn’t handled a dozen times in the past.  She could handle it.  And the first step in doing that would be moving.  She was hurt and exhausted and she needed to finish up before she wasted away in there.

“Nat, doll, you okay?”

She flinched at the nickname.  Steve was just outside the bathroom, and the worry in his voice was pretty unmistakable.  It took a lot to make herself answer.  “I’m fine.  Be out in a second.”

Thankfully, he didn’t press or come in.  Not that there was any room for him anyway.  They’d tried that in the past.  “Alright.”  She wasn’t sure that he walked away, but it didn’t matter.  She knew he’d be waiting for her.  So she washed absently and quickly despite how sore and exhausted she was.  Then she got out of the small stall and reached for her towel.  Standing in front of the tiny sink, she dried herself off before working a brush through her hair.  She smoothed out the snarls and tangles, trying not to look at her reflection.  She could picture how bruised and red the side of her face probably was.  She could _imagine_ how devastated she looked, how pale and weak and damn pathetic.  Looking different because she _was_ different.  That was too much, so she kept her eyes on the sink and got herself dressed in SHIELD standard-issue sweats and a cotton camisole she’d found among the clothes she kept in her quarters.  No make-up.  No nothing.

Steve was waiting, just as she’d suspected, and he practically pounced on her the second she emerged from the bathroom.  Quarters aboard the helicarrier were small and cramped, even ones like this which were reserved for the higher level agents, so he didn’t have to move much to be right in front of her.  “You okay?”

She didn’t think she could deal with his worry right now.  “Sorry,” she said instead of answering.  Her voice sounded raw and throaty, and her eyes felt like they were welling.  She couldn’t remember the last time she’d cried.  Years ago, maybe.  She shrugged and gave a faltering grin to hide how close she was to coming apart.  “There’s not much hot water left.”

“That’s okay,” he assured.  He was still pretty dirty from the fight, soot smeared on his hands and face, dried sweat having made tracks through the grime.  It was in his hair, too, but other than being filthy, he was completely unharmed.  Of course.  He was Captain America.  It took much more than terrorist rabble to faze him.  “I don’t mind.”

“Sure, you don’t,” she lamely quipped.  She knew how sensitive he was, particularly about the cold but about everything in general.  It was another side effect of the serum, how sharp his senses were.  He felt almost everything more acutely.  It had its advantages.  It was meant to elevate his senses to the peak of human potential in battle, so he could see farther and with more detail, hear more, taste and smell and _feel_ more in every way imaginable.  That had other nice perks, like enjoying food more and experiencing things at a deeper level.  It was particularly nice during sex (she’d noticed that, just how easy Steve got aroused and how fast he could get aroused again, just how little it took for him to lose himself in their love-making).  She was pretty sure _that_ (like the number of times he apparently needed to climax to feel satiated) wasn’t an intended effect of Project: Rebirth, but whatever.

Still, these things had their disadvantages, too, like the fact that the cold got to him quickly (though that aversion was probably compounded by being frozen alive when he’d crashed HYDRA’s plane in 1945) or the fact that he felt pain more.  In fact, the serum definitely had its drawbacks, when she really thought about it (and she was hazy enough right then with fatigue and depression that she did).  How fast he got over-sensitized sometimes.  How hard it was for him to come down from battle, too.  He didn’t need sleep like a normal person did, so he was alone at night a lot like an insomniac would be.  The not being able to get drunk (or high or even experience pain relief) thing somewhat sucked ( _really_ sucked every time he got hurt).  His memories were so vivid and eidetic, but so were his nightmares.  And having to eat so much and so often to feed an enhanced metabolism that burned through calories four times faster than normal.  That was a pain (an expensive one, she’d realized once she’d started pitching in for their groceries at home).  Perfection didn’t exist, and coming as physically close as Steve did had its costs.

At any rate, a cold shower was probably worse for him, but he wouldn’t hesitate to let her have all the hot water no matter how much he hated it.  And he didn’t hesitate now in pulling her into his arms.  “It’s alright,” he whispered as he tucked her to his chest.  His hands were gentle on her back, his mouth pressed into her hair.  “It really is.”

It wasn’t.  It really wasn’t.

She lay on her bunk as he showered, drifting, not thinking, not caring.  Staring at the gunmetal gray ceiling and feeling the helicarrier hum around her as it hovered not far off the coast of Dubai.  It was lulling, and she was completely beat, so for a second she entertained the possibility that she could fall asleep.  She’d wake up tomorrow morning, and everything would be better, right?  That was how that saying went.  _Tomorrow’s another day._

It didn’t feel that way, though.  She’d screwed up.  She’d let Sutter get away, botched the op, _failed._   If she hadn’t been there…  Maybe it would have gone differently.  Better.  Maybe Steve would have been able to get a hold of Sutter, brought him down, arrested him.  Or, if not that, maybe if she hadn’t been unconscious, Steve would have pursued him.  But she’d gone ahead with trying herself, even knowing it wasn’t quite right, and fucked everything up.

And the worst part was, as she laid there, staring up with her eyes stinging and burning and that gray ceiling blurring…  The worst part was that she was starting to wonder if Rumlow wasn’t right.

_Steve didn’t need her._

The sound of the bathroom door opening startled her, and she looked to see Steve coming out in nothing but his boxer briefs with a towel to his hair.  _God, look at him._   The miles of flawless, creamy skin, without a single blemish or scar despite all the danger he faced and all the battles he’d fought.  The ridiculous proportion of his broad shoulders to his waist, and the ridiculous pecs and abs and everything else in between.  Long arms lined with swells of muscles that hid just how strong he was.  Cords of sinew in his hands, fingers surprisingly fine-boned (or not – they were an artist’s hands, and they were remarkable in everything they did, from dragging charcoal across paper to throwing his shield to caressing inside her).  Thighs, thick and powerful.  His perfect face, with its bright, blue eyes narrowed in concentration and strong jawline slightly clenched and plush, kissable lower lip caught between his teeth as he dried himself further.  That perfectly rounded ass and that perfectly, _amply_ sized bulge in the front of his underwear and that perfect _everything._

And it wasn’t just his body.  It was the way he walked and fought and commanded respect and led by example and _understood_ everything now.  He was so far from the uncertain, broken young man she’d taken under her wing only a year ago.  His perfect heart and soul.  Those had been there before.  They’d _always_ been there, but they’d _flourished_ in the last few months.  Thrived.  _Perfect._

_He doesn’t need me._

The sob slipped out of her before she managed to quell it.  Steve turned around instantly, his eyes widening at the sight of her rolling to face the wall.  “Nat?”  She jabbed her teeth into her lower lip to stop herself because she was _not_ going to cry.  She was Black Widow.  She didn’t cry, _never_ cried, and not over something this ridiculous.  This was fucking _stupid._   The mission hadn’t been her fault.  All of the talk of her being reassigned…  That was bullshit.  And Steve not being satisfied in bed?  It was a biological side effect of the goddamn serum, just like having to eat more or not being able to get drunk.  Like he said, it was not a reflection of her.  She knew her worth.  She knew she was _good_ at what she did.

_What do you do?  Sleep with Captain America.  That’s all you’re good for now._

Another sob escaped her before she could clamp down on it.  She felt like finding Steve in the bathroom last weekend had driven this thorn into her, and she’d tried to pull it out, of course, but it was stubborn and in deep and she’d walked on it and walked on it until she couldn’t stand it anymore.  Or she’d been struck hard, and the blow had cracked this image she’d had of herself.  Those cracks had grown, inexplicably but inexorably, spreading like spider webs, like a lattice of lines in a piece of glass that was about to shatter.  She was about to shatter.

“Nat…  What can I do?”  He was right beside her.  She could feel him, the sturdiness of his thighs grazing her back as he fought to give her some distance.  “How can I help?”

 _Right.  Because that’s the way we are now.  You help me.  You protect me.  I fuck you.  And I can’t even do that right._ The bitter, angry, _vulgar_ thought hurt so much that her eyes flooded despite how they were squeezed shut.  She knew her voice would break if she spoke, so instead she drove her teeth into her tongue until she tasted blood and curled tighter into herself.  The great and deadly Black Widow, the world’s most accomplished assassin, crushed into a fetal position and weeping pathetically for her trampled self-esteem.

“Nat, love, talk to me…”  His hand was huge and warm on her shoulder, and she was torn between wanting to pull him closer and push him away.  “Tell me what I can do to make it better.  You want me to get you something to eat?  Some painkillers, maybe?  You took a real nasty knock.”  His fingertips were light and so careful as he brushed her hair away from her bruised temple.  “Do you…”  He sucked in an unhappy, worried breath.  “Do you want me to go?  It’s fine.  I can–”

“Hold me,” she gasped.  “ _Please.”_

The bunk was hardly big enough for the both of them.  She was petite, but he wasn’t.  They always made it work, though.  She shifted over clumsily, and he spooned her, pulling her to his bare chest and draping a secure arm over her hip.  The second his familiar heat wrapped around her, she lost it completely.  It all came apart.  Everything – her doubts and her anger and her fears – came to the surface and poured out of her on a flood of hot, salty tears and shaking breaths.

“Shh, love,” he whispered after she was a few minutes into silently weeping.  He rubbed his hand slowly up and down her other arm.  She could tell he was rattled, seeing her this way.  The cool, unflappable, _unstoppable_ Black Widow reduced to this shivering, sobbing mess in his arms.  She was torn between hating herself for being so weak and haplessly letting herself go all the more because it felt so good.  “It’s not your fault.  None of it is.  Don’t let it get to you.”  If she’d had more energy, more spunk, she might have laughed at that.  Black Widow never let anything get to her.  Didn’t he know that?  Of course, the fact that _she couldn’t stop crying_ was rather strong evidence to the contrary.

And she didn’t stop.  She let go in a way she never had before, weeping against him until her eyes were raw and her throat hurt and her headache was a million times worse.  Until she was practically asleep she was so exhausted.  And he kept holding her tight, kissing her hair, rubbing her arm, and whispering his nonsense.  “Shhh…  I’ve got you, Nat.  It’s going to be alright.  Really, it is.  Tomorrow things’ll be right as rain.  I know it.  It’s fine, love.  It’s fine.”

He was so wrong.  It wasn’t fine.  Now more than ever, it wasn’t fine.It was in no way, shape, or form _ever_ going to be fine.  Not like this.

But at least now she knew how to fix it.

* * *

It took quite a bit of work and most the morning for Natasha to sneak off to Fury’s office.  It wasn’t easy, what with her so freaking _far_ off her game now and with Steve hovering again.  She’d scared him last night.  He wouldn’t say it, of course, but she could tell.  She knew him better than anyone, knew his heart and his mind just as well as she knew his body, so she could detect that he was even more worried and unsettled and _desperate_ to help her than he had been before.  Getting out from under his watchful eye took some doing, particularly since she wasn’t in the mood, as sore and worn as she was, to put on an act of being okay.  With the help of some make-up, she’d made her eyes look less red and covered up the bruise and the swelling from being hit with Sutter’s stupid briefcase.  But to act like she was okay when she was about to do what she was about to do?  That was too much.

And he’d caught on that she was up to something.  When they’d gone down to the mess to have breakfast, he’d kept looking at her, not suspiciously but warily, as if he was trying to figure her out.  Having him analyze her all through their meal only heightened the fact that she could feel everyone _else_ watching her, too.  News about the mission had predictably spread (most assuredly twisted to make her look even worse – thank you, Rumlow).  On top of that, a great deal of the crew on the helicarrier was involved in a rather massive manhunt for Sutter, both in terms of surveillance and on the ground in Dubai and the surrounding areas.  If he was still here, he needed to be caught before he hurt anyone or sold his formula to another dangerous party like Khandar.  Operations like this tended to be slow and boring, similar to searching for a needle in a haystack, and the personnel aboard the helicarrier were as much into gossip as the folks at the Triskelion.  She could practically hear them whispering now.  It was stupid paranoia, but the pressure of that scrutiny was so awful that she couldn’t stand to sit there.  They left before Steve had even finished eating.

He’d stubbornly clung to her side for a while after that like a guard dog (or a shield – she supposed that was more appropriate) before Hill thankfully summoned him to consult on an operation going down in Pakistan.  He’d gone, but even then he’d hesitated, as if he was afraid of what she might do if he wasn’t there to stop her.

He was right to be.

Natasha sucked a slow breath in through her nose and tried to gather herself.  Nothing was the same.  That demarcation in her life where normal was a thing of the past…  It felt like a gorge now, like a huge rut in the substance of her heart.  She stood on one side and everything she had been last week was on the other.  The distance between those two points was too far to cross, as wide and vast as fathomable, and there was no going back.  She was different.  She could only go forward, do the right thing.  Steve had taught her that.  So that meant going into Fury’s office and doing what she needed to do.

It’d be alright.  It wasn’t like they were ending their relationship.  It wasn’t like that at all.  _It’ll be alright._

So she knocked on the door.  A moment later, Fury’s muffled voice answered.  “Come in.”  She grabbed the handle and pushed open the door.  Fury’s office aboard the helicarrier wasn’t nearly as big or airy as his office at the Triskelion, but it was among the most sizeable rooms aboard the ship.  Everything was still gunmetal gray, chrome, and steel.  The SHIELD Director sat at his desk, flanked by computer screens that were arranged much like his station on the bridge.  His one good eye flicked to Natasha as she stepped inside before returning to what looked like a mountain of work.  She couldn’t tell if he was surprised to see her.  As good a spy as she was, she still couldn’t touch his level.  “Agent Romanoff.”

“Sir.”  She stood at ease before him.  SHIELD wasn’t entirely a military organization, but there were times and places where it was appropriate.  This felt to be one of them.

Fury glanced at her again.  “What can I do for you?”

This was it.  She hesitated a moment, because as much as she knew this was right, getting the words out was much harder than she thought it would be.  “I’d like to… request reassignment.”

Now Fury stopped.  He set down the tablet he’d been using, swiped his data away on his monitors, and looked up at her squarely.  She fought to stand motionless under his analytical stare.  There were a few people in the world whose mere disapproving glance intimidated her.  Fury’s always had been and always would be one of them.  He’d given her a chance, against the wishes of the World Security Council, when Clint had brought her into SHIELD.  He’d looked beyond the horrible left she’d led, the countless murders and robberies and arsons and _worse_ in her history, and had seen a good person beneath who deserved a second chance.  She’d grown to respect him greatly since then, so much so that disappointing him was truly a painful prospect.

She couldn’t tell if she was disappointing him now.  He leaned back in his chair with a crackle of leather shifting on leather.  “And why might that be?” he finally asked just as the moment of silence was bordering on excruciating.

She swallowed.  “I think it’s time, sir.”

“Time for what?”

“Captain Rogers is ready,” she explained.  She had to get this out before she lost her nerve.  “You assigned me to oversee his training as a SHIELD agent and integration into modern society.  He’s excelled at both.  So my mission’s complete.  It has been for a while.”

Fury appraised her evenly.  “Are you two having any problems working together?”  Of course he knew about their relationship.  Fury knew everything.  It was his job to.  This was his subtle way of asking if there was trouble in paradise (without directly acknowledging the fraternization issue, which they’d been allowed to ignore considering how important Steve was to SHIELD).

She immediately shook her head.  “No.”

“Has Captain Rogers expressed to you any interest in a different assignment?  He hasn’t said anything to me.”

She couldn’t lie, even if it might aid in her cause.  “No.”  Fury simply stared at her, and she felt incredibly stupid as he let her flounder a moment.  Subtly, of course, with a little shift of her eyes and weight.  But he noticed and she scrambled to bolster her argument.  “His talents are better spent elsewhere.  He’s a leader and a fighter.  A first strike weapon.”  It sickened her to use Rumlow’s words, but she couldn’t help it.  Rumlow was right.  “He’s meant to command.  And he’s not as well suited to espionage.  I can return to working with Hawkeye or going solo.”  She felt like she was rambling, so she gathered herself.  “Sir.”

“By command, I assume you mean command STRIKE,” Fury said.  Natasha was silent.  Just hearing Fury mention that was too painful.  She hated the idea of Steve being stuck with those assholes even if he’d be in charge.  She hated that almost as much as she hated the idea of not being his partner anymore.  Fury nodded, almost to himself.  “Seems logical.  Probably why there are a bunch of rumors going around about it.”

That was all it took for her to know for sure that none of it had ever been true.  Sitwell and Hill hadn’t advised Fury to reassign Steve.  There was no looming reassessment and reassignment.  It had all been bullshit.  And Fury had known about it.  Of course he had.  And he’d known about it coming from Rumlow.  He’d known it all.  She’d manipulated enough people to see he was trying to manipulate her, trying to get to the bottom of what she was doing here.  He stared right at her, folding his hands together on his lap.  “Is that why you want another assignment?  Because it makes sense?”

Truth be told…  She wasn’t so sure _what_ she was doing.  _No.  Be strong._ “I’m holding him back,” she softly confessed.  “He can…  He can do more than I can, Nick.  Go longer.  Fight harder.  He’s the best.  He deserves better than what I can do for him.”

There.  It was out there now.  It sounded reasonable, didn’t it?  And not too ridiculous or self-deprecating?  She was so turned around in her head that she didn’t know anymore.

Fury sighed and leaned forward, putting his hands on his desk.  “Take a seat, Natasha.”  He gestured at the chair on the other side of his desk.  She hesitated, feeling increasingly uncomfortable, before doing as he suggested.  Fury stared at her a moment, and she couldn’t bring herself to meet his gaze.  That awful quiet returned.  “Rough day yesterday, huh?”

She gave a hint of a strained smile.  “Rough week, actually.”

“You know, I read the mission reports from last night.  Seems like this Sutter guy is a real piece of work.  Trying his magical potion out on himself?  That’s screwed up.  He’s mighty desperate to show his juice works, mighty desperate to be the best, I guess.  Pride does go before the fall.”  Natasha didn’t want to think about it.  It made her too angry.  “At any rate, it’s pretty obvious it wasn’t your fault, no matter how Agent Rumlow tried to phrase his report to make it seem like it.  There was no way you could have known.”

She averted her eyes.  She didn’t want to be placated.  Steve had done it.  Over and over again, he’d said it.  _“It’s not your fault.  You did the best you could.  It just happened.”_ It felt like shallow, meaningless drivel, and she didn’t want to hear it, especially not like this, not from Fury.  This felt like being coddled by a parent.  “Sir, that’s not–”

“You ever hear the story of Oedipus, Romanoff?”

She looked up, surprised at the sudden change of subject.  “What?”

“Oedipus,” Fury said again, appraising her evenly.  “Mythical Greek king.”

Shaking her head, she tried to switch gears and get her brain to think.  The only thing she could remember was the (perverted) sexual aspect of the tale.  Was this Fury’s way of trying to say something disapproving about her relationship with Steve?  She couldn’t imagine what with that segue…  Or about Sutter?  Or Rumlow?  “Um…  Something about him sleeping with his mother?”

Fury gave a rueful smile.  “That’s the thing most people know about it, but there is a whole story around it other than Freud’s crazy, latent sexual deviancy stuff.”  She didn’t know it.  Greek fables weren’t something she’d ever studied.  Why the hell would she?  Fury went on at her blank expression.  “Oedipus’ father was king, and he was told a prophecy that his infant son would grow to kill him and marry his wife one day.  So, to avert this fate, Oedipus’ father leaves him to die on a mountainside.  Only he doesn’t die.  He’s found by peasants and given to another king and queen, and they raise him as their own.  When Oedipus grows up, he hears the same prophecy, and he’s afraid he’s going to kill them, the king and the queen who are his would-be parents.  So he leaves for Thebes to prevent it.  On his way to what he thinks is a different destiny, he meets an old stranger.  They get into it a fight, and he ends up killing this man.  Then he journeys on and finds out the king of Thebes is dead and the city is in danger.  Some crazy shit happens after that – it’s Greek, after all – but he ends up saving Thebes and marrying the widowed queen.”

“What’s the point of this?” Natasha asked, barely following and not sure why she should be caring.

Fury was undaunted by her curt tone.  “Years later, when Oedipus goes looking for answers as to what happened to the original king of Thebes, his wife’s first husband, he finds out the truth.  _He_ was the one who killed the king.  That stranger on the road wasn’t a stranger really.  And that stranger wasn’t just the king.  He was Oedipus’ father.  So, in the end, Oedipus killed his own father and married his mother, just like he’d been told he would.  Everything Oedipus and his father did to stop these things from coming true… it all actually _made_ them come true.  Expectations altering behavior to make those expectations real.”  He leaned back, letting that sink in.  “It’s called a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

 _A self-fulfilling prophecy._  The thought stuck in her head, spinning around and around.  _A self-fulfilling prophecy._

“So I’ll ask you again,” he said, leaning back anew.  “Why do you think I should reassign you?”

“Director Fury.”  Sitwell’s voice over the speaker on the comm center of Fury’s desk interrupted them.  “Sir, you better come to the bridge.  There’s a situation brewing that you should probably see.”

Fury’s expression darkened, and he stood, shutting off his computers.  He went around his desk and passed Natasha on his way out the door.  She rose and followed him.

The bright light of a new day was pouring in through the many large windows that lined the bridge, and the silvery stretch of the ocean before them was beautiful.  The morning crew was working, and there was the low hum of conversation that there always was.  However, Sitwell (and most the other people) were gathered around a large monitor at the communications station.  “Report,” Fury demanded as he and Natasha approached.

Sitwell turned.  His arms were folded across his suit, and he looked equal parts annoyed and surprised.  “Sutter has shown up,” he declared, shaking his head and turning back to the monitor.

Confusion creased Fury’s brow.  “What?”

“Take a look, sir.”  Sitwell stood aside and gestured to the monitor.  Natasha narrowed her eyes in disbelief.  Why in the world would Sutter reveal himself now after just barely escaping?  He had to know SHIELD would be searching for him, and with SHIELD’s endless and powerful resources, he’d need every second of a head start to have a hope of escape.

But there he was on the screen.  A news crew was filming him.  He was on a nice pier, a stone one that stretched away from a resort hotel and out a hundred feet or so into the harbor.  He was right at the end, the rising sun aglow behind him, and he was waving his arms maniacally.  Now the device that he was using to feed himself his super juice was plainly visible under his shirt sleeve.  There was one on either arm, likely pumping his formula into his blood in a constant stream, and he looked… crazed.  And bigger than he had been.  Taller.  It had to be the steroids increasing his muscle mass and bone density and whatever other serum-like manifestations it was producing.  She could see from the news ticker on the live footage that the local authorities were concerned those devices were bombs.  The police were there, surrounding him, and he was shouting.  “I want to talk to SHIELD!  I want to talk to SHIELD!  I want Captain America, you hear me?  Send Captain America!”

“Get Rogers up here,” Fury growled to Sitwell.  Sitwell nodded and went off to do that.  “What the hell is he going on about?”

“He wants Rogers to come,” one of the techs lamely explained, shaking her head incredulously.  She was watching the insane scene with wide eyes.  “He wants to fight him.”

“Sutter wants to fight the Cap?” Fury repeated, and now his voice was tight with disbelief.

“He says he’ll surrender if Cap beats him.”

Another tech, a young guy with acne and nerdy glasses, shook his head.  “It’s stupid.”

The young woman shrugged.  “It’s _insane_ , is what it is.  Have you _seen_ Captain Rogers fight?  And this guy’s some kind of scientist, right?  He’s never going to beat him.”

Natasha had to agree.  There was no way Sutter could ever hope to best Steve.  Even if his super juice had enhanced his body to the point where they were evenly matched in terms of strength, speed, and endurance, Steve was highly trained.  His body was a weapon.  He was smart and tactical.  There was _no way_ this guy could defeat him.  And even if, _if,_ he did, he had to know he’d be arrested anyway.

She stared at him on the screen, raving like a lunatic, demanding he get the chance to prove himself…  Sometimes the quest to be the best was beyond logic.

Fury groaned, almost long-suffering.  “Romanoff, take the STRIKE Team and Rogers and get down there.  I want this finished for good, preferably without the public spectacle of Captain America kicking the crap out of a renegade scientist on foreign soil in broad daylight.”  Natasha didn’t even think to argue that she wasn’t the best choice, that she’d already lost this guy once.  It wouldn’t matter if she did because Fury was already turning away, anyway.  “Been a _really_ rough week,” he grumbled, “and it’s freaking Saturday morning and I have better things to do than deal with a wannabe.”

* * *

In terms of mission climaxes, this one was… _weird_.  It fit into the rest of the events of recent days, though, weird and uncomfortable and unpleasant and not at all normal, so Natasha supposed it was alright.

The local authorities had cordoned off the pier, but there was a significant crowd already assembled around the boardwalk and in the lawns of the surrounding resorts.  _Public spectacle._   That was going to be fairly avoidable, even with SHIELD getting the news people out and removing the choppers from the area.  The day was already blisteringly hot, with the sun beating relentlessly down, but people seemed to be waiting patiently, like they _knew_ they’d come to see some sort of prize fight.  Or a duel.  She wasn’t sure exactly what Sutter thought this was going to be.   _A beat down._

Steve was beside her as they walked the length of the pier.  He was quiet, shield on his back, helmet under his arm.  His face was placid, serene, eyes brilliantly blue in the daylight and hair so very blond.  His jaw was set with determination, _the Captain America look_ as she’d heard it called once or twice.  Like his frown of disapproval, it had a power all its own.  Right now, though, the power wasn’t there, at least not entirely.  She knew why.  He was worried, though not about Sutter (well, not _all_ about Sutter.  The obligatory surface concerns were always there, like getting this done with no one getting hurt and what have you).  No, he was worried about her.  She could feel it, though he was doing a good job of hiding it (much better than he used to, thanks to his time spent with her).  He was concerned, anxious, probably distracted.  She didn’t like this at all.

And she didn’t like that Sutter’s face practically burst into a goofy smile seeing Steve emerge from the police line at the end of the pier.  “Captain America, you came!  Great.  Great.  Now we can do this.”

Steve continued onward a few more steps.  Natasha stayed back a bit, the STRIKE Team flanking her.  Their rifles were raised and at the ready.  Rumlow looked pissed as all hell, though at what Natasha couldn’t say.  Everything probably since he was who he was.

Steve, being Steve, went the diplomatic approach.  He was more genuine about it than anyone else would have been, given how stupid and crazy this was and how hot and frustrated they all were.  “It doesn’t have to end like this, Mr. Sutter.”

“Doctor,” Sutter corrected.  He was sweating like mad in the unforgiving heat, his face flushed.  He looked on the verge of exploding or something like that, pumped to the gills on his steroids, _swimming_ in aggression and testosterone and who knew what the hell else.  “It’s doctor.”

Natasha could feel Rumlow practically vibrating to her left with the itch to shoot this guy.  She wasn’t sure she blamed him for once.  Steve didn’t react nearly so forcefully.  “Alright then, Doctor,” he said calmly.  “Whatever it is you’re doing to yourself, it’s not the way to go.  This isn’t the way to go.  Surrender.  Come with us and let us help you.”  It was a very logical, very gentle and natural, very _Steve_ approach to this situation.

And Sutter didn’t hear a word of it.  “You help me?  Yeah, that’s the line, isn’t it?  What the beautiful people always say to those who on the outside looking in?  It’s alright.  We can help you.  Yeah, help me with your fucking pity.”  He literally spat that word, a glob of saliva landing on the toe of Steve’s boot.  “I helped myself.  Gonna get what I want, look the way I want, _be_ what I want.  This stuff?”  He shook his arm.  “Like magic.”

“Doctor–”

“You would know.  You were like me.”  Steve was completely stoic, unmoved by the attempt to manipulate him.  “I know the story.  You were a poor, sick, frail _nobody._   And they picked you and pumped you full of the super soldier serum and _voila!_   Now you’re Captain America.  So _fast_ and _strong_ and _incredible._   People worldwide look up to you as a hero.  You’re _the best._ ”

Steve winced and shook his head.  “That’s not–”

“Don’t argue with me!” Sutter screamed.  “I saw it.  I saw you fight last night.  You make it look so easy.  _I_ want that, to be able to do what you did.  I know I can.  It’s easy with this.”  He lifted his arm, revealing the device with a proud smile.  “Just like it was for you.  It was easy for you, wasn’t it?”  _Not in the least._   Natasha bristled inside at the implication that Steve hadn’t worked for what he had.  Despite his bad health, he’d tried enlisting in the army _five times_ just to do what was right.  And he’d done it.  He’d fought in a war, _died_ for this world.  _Sacrificed._ This man wouldn’t know honor or value if it walked up and smacked him across the face.  “Well, with this, what _I_ invented, I’m just as strong as you.  Just as good.  So come on.  Come on!”  Sutter had his hands up now, balled into fists, bouncing in a sloppy and incorrect fighting stance.  Steve just stared at him incredulously.  “Come on!  What are you, a coward?  The great Captain America, too scared to take on a challenge!  Come on!  Fight me!  Fight me, or I’ll run!  I’ll hurt someone!”  That seemed to be an empty threat.  Maybe he was faster and stronger, but escaping Captain America and Black Widow and a line of the best black ops soldiers in the world?  Unlikely.  But could they risk that?  Could they risk chasing him in this crowded area as unhinged and unpredictable as he was?  And they still didn’t know what was in those vials.  It could be toxic or deadly.  This ended best with Sutter surrendering.

That didn’t seem likely.  “Come on, you fucking chicken!  Fight me!”

“I’m not going to fight you,” Steve replied.

“Fucking pussy!  Come on!  Fight me!  _Come on!_ ”  Steve didn’t move, shaking his head slowly.  Behind him, a couple of the STRIKE soldiers were sniggering, though whether at Sutter for thinking he could beat Captain America in hand-to-hand combat or at Steve for not immediately knocking this bastard as his ass wasn’t clear.  That only threw fuel on Sutter’s fire, and he suddenly roared, charged, and punched Steve.  Hard.

Steve staggered back, his helmet clattering to the pier.  Natasha’s heart leapt in her chest as he did, as he stumbled with a hand up against his cheek.  The air was still and suffocating and so hot.  No one moved or spoke, trapped in it, staring in shock as Steve righted himself.  He pulled his fingers away from his mouth, revealing a smear of red.  _That_ was something.  She knew how hard Sutter had to have hit him to knock him off his balance, for him to be bleeding.

Sutter gave a hoarse laugh, pumping the air enthusiastically.  “Yeah!  You like that, Cap?  Huh?  Who’s the best now?  Whose serum is better?  I’ll beat the shit out of you in front of everyone, and then _everyone_ will know how perfect _I_ am.”

_Perfect._

Then it clicked.  Sutter’s personality from his file.  His arrogance.  His vanity.  The change in his appearance.  His briefcase full of his papers.  _That_ was what he’d taken from a burning building under siege, like the proof of his worthiness was more important than anything else.  Like he needed a constant reminder of how _good_ he was.  And this, here and now.  He only saw the surface, wanted things rich and easy, wanted to be the best without the bad parts that came with it.

Natasha’s thoughts hung still.  _He wants everything that being the best means but none of the side effects._

_Pride goes before the fall._

Suddenly she knew what to do.

Getting punched finally did in Steve’s patience.  He clenched his right hand into a fist and made to strike.

Natasha moved without thinking.  She jumped forward, running the short distance between her and Steve, and took his arm.  “Captain!  Cap!”  Steve stilled instantly at her touch.  Sutter betrayed his uncertainty, looking terrified but then relieved for a second before scowling anew.  Natasha glared at him.  “Let me handle this,” she declared.

Steve was rigid.  She could feel how angry he was.  Still, just like that, he backed off, backed away.  Lowered his fist and deferred.  Sutter laughed with way too much bravado his tremoring tone.  “What?  She got you whipped, Cap?”  Steve said nothing, bending over to collect his helmet.  Sutter was absolutely enraged as Natasha took his place dead in front of him.  “What the hell?  You’re… you’re letting _her_ fight for you?”

“Yep.”

“She calls the shots?” Sutter sputtered in disdain and frustration.  “I thought you were the leader!”

Steve actually smiled.  It was sunny – so damn _happy and proud_ – to see her stepping up.  Taking over.  _Handling this._   “Sometimes.  But she’s my partner.  I trust her to know what’s best.”  He gave Natasha a wink as he turned around and walked back to the STRIKE Team.

Natasha stood there then, sweat beading on her brow and uncomfortably under her uniform.  She didn’t twitch, though, or fidget, as still as the water out in the harbor without a breath of breeze disturbing it.  Sutter, on the other hand, was falling apart more and more by the second.  He was dripping in perspiration, caught between being overly confident he could beat her and worried that she was up to something despite his earlier disparaging of her.  “So what?  You’re just gonna stand there and stare at me?  I would.”  He gave a sloppy, arrogant smirk.  “I already beat you once.”

She resisted the urge to argue with him.  A plan had quickly formed in her head, and she knew beyond any doubt it was the way to go.  “Actually, I thought I would do you a favor and talk for a minute.”

His good cheer vanished, replaced with a ferocious scowl.  “Then I’ll run.”

“Fine,” she said with a nonchalant shrug.  “Suit yourself.”  He didn’t move, though, baking in the oven of the morning, and neither did she.  She forced herself to stay motionless despite how uncomfortable it was, and a few long seconds of him trying to figure her out ensued.

Then he snarled, even more irate, shaking an accusatory forefinger at her.  “You’re trying to play me.”

She gave a little smile.  “That is what I do.”  And it was.  It felt good to do it.  Plus she knew – _knew_ – with this asshole’s obsession with winning and being better than everyone that he wouldn’t let her get away with her arrogance.  So she let her pleasure show.  “But if you want to run now while you can, go ahead.  I won’t stop you.”  She poured it on thick.  “Like you said, we already know you can beat me.”

That buttered him up, got him interested.  She could see the maniacal energy and rage dissipate, the bulge of new muscles loosening as he relaxed just a bit.  “Alright.  Talk.”

She didn’t waste any time.  “I just wanted to warn you.”

Sutter’s face broke in disgust.  “Warn me?”

She had to play this slow because if she became aggressive or overly confrontational, he’d bolt or attack.  She had to offer him information _without_ seeming like she knew more than him.  _Simple._   “This super soldier steroid that you invented and are using on yourself…  It’s the same as the serum Captain Rogers has?  Didn’t you say that?”

“Better,” Sutter quickly and forcefully declared.  _“Better.”_

“But you modeled it after it, right.  It works the same way?”

“I doubt you’d understand the details so I’ll just say yes.  Fundamentally.”

“Increased metabolism, increased cellular regeneration, reduced build-up of fatigue toxins…”

“Yes.  All of that.  _More_ than that.”

She nodded.  “Okay, I just wanted to be sure because, well…”  At this she took a step closer, a small, nonthreatening one.  “I mean, you know, don’t you?  I think it’s public knowledge.  If you got access to SSR’s files from back in the day on the original serum enough to copy it that well, you’d have to know.”

He took her bait.  “Know what?”

“About its side effects.”

 _Bingo._   It was slight (well, maybe not as slight as some of the more dangerous and deadly enemies she’d interrogated or faced in the past, but probably slight for Sutter).  His eyes widened just a little, his lips moved in a tiny nervous twitch, and his muscles clenched in dismay.  For a second, he simply stood, mind reeling, it seemed, as he tried to process that.  Then he shook his head.  “There are no side effects.”

“Oh, no.  No, there are.”  She turned and looked back at Steve.  “Right, Cap?  Serious side effects.”

To his credit, Steve was already seeing where she was going, and he was completely on board.  “Yeah.”  He made his voice sound small, made himself _pale_ just a little at the mere mention of the supposed side effects.  She’d taught him that.  How to lie.  How to act _terrified_.  “Yeah.”

Natasha nodded to that, donning a sympathetic frown and turning back to Sutter.  She stepped closer still, dropping her tone into what she knew sounded compassionate and secretive.  “It was one of the biggest cons of all time.  They knew back then, back in 1943, that there were problems with the original serum.  They didn’t tell him before they gave it to him, and afterward…  They couldn’t let it be known that Captain America had… _problems_ during the war.  Risk everyone’s faith like that at the worst time imaginable?  The world needed its hero, the _best_ hero it could have, and that meant he had to be perfect.”

“That’s a bunch of bullshit,” Sutter said, but his eyes suggested he wasn’t so sure.

Natasha let her voice get a little harder.  “It’s not.  Why would they let it out that their super soldier wasn’t completely, well, _super?_   Not to mention the fact that this was illegal human experimentation.”  She made a show of considering her words.  “Well, now that I think about it?  I guess it makes sense.  Maybe it’s only common knowledge to those of us who have to work with him every day.”  She tipped her head back at Steve, who was playing his part, looking increasingly small and sick and affected by the heat.

Sutter looked, too.  “What do you mean?” he asked quietly.

“The side effects,” she said again, emphasizing it more and more.  She had to make this sound godawful, like Steve was hardly functioning or some nonsense like that.  Again she moved a little closer, lowering her voice even more so no one else would hear.  “Like the fact that he can’t get drunk.  His metabolism burns fast–”

“I know,” Sutter hissed.

“–so fast that he hasn’t been drunk in seventy years.  Do you know how much that sucks?  It’s bad for him, but it’s kind of a drag for us, too.  Who wants to hang around with someone who can’t ever switch off?”  Given how much Sutter had longed to be popular in school, that was going to hurt.  “And it’s not just getting drunk.  He can’t even have pain medicine when he gets hurt.  I’ve seen that…”  She shuddered.  She didn’t have to work hard for that, not in the least.  “It’s awful.  Can’t imagine how terrible _that_ is, having to hurt so bad.  Sure, it doesn’t last long because he heals fast, but still.  A few hours in miserable, unrelenting, _agonizing_ pain?  Might as well be an eternity, I imagine.”

She could see she was getting there now.  His eyes widened even more, and the hectic color of his face calmed to a spreading pallor.  Natasha went on.  “So that’s bad.  You want to hear more?”  Sutter nodded blankly.  “Can’t get drunk or high or buzzed, but I think I said that.  Can’t switch off, and I mean more than just having a good time.  He _never_ turns off.  The serum keeps him sharp all the time, so he’s always working.  I don’t think his brain lets him stop.  Always thinking, always moving.  And having to eat so much.  _So much._   I can’t even fathom how he’d afford to live on his own if SHIELD wasn’t feeding him.  I don’t think he’s ever _full_ , either.  It’s like his body just burns it up the second he’s got it down.”  More blood drained from Sutter’s cheeks.  He twitched, jerking toward the straps on his arm just a bit.  “Oh, and he never sleeps, at least not for more than a couple hours.  He doesn’t need it, so he’s up all the time.  That’s freaky.  And lonely.  And the psychological damage.”

“Psych-psychological?”

Time to add some plain old bullshit for embellishment.  “Sure.  He’s in therapy continually.  He’s really sensitive, physically and emotionally.  He feels everything more, I think, so it gets to him.  And when he does sleep, he has really vivid dreams.  Nightmares but not just that.  All _sorts_ of dreams.”  She lowered her voice.  “ _Really_ vivid.  And it’s not like they can medicate him for it, so he just…  He deals.  Kind of.”  She pushed further, really piling on the exaggerations and outright lies now.  “He cries a lot.”

Sutter glanced at Steve again.  Steve was just standing, more stoic now.  The damage had already been done, though, because Sutter was suddenly seeing him – this perfect thing he’d wanted to be – in a different light.

Natasha resisted the curl of a smile coming to her lips, donning instead a mask of concern.  “So I just wanted to make sure you know.  I’ve seen what the super serum does.  It’s not pretty.  But I’m sure your better formula won’t have these problems, right?”  Sutter clearly wasn’t too sure anymore.  He seemed horrified.  Natasha nodded.  “So go on and run if you want.  Or fight.  It’ll be nice to be the best.  Want me to have Captain Rogers come back up here so you can challenge him again?”

“I…  Uh…”  That spastic jerk of his fingers to the straps returned, this time more insistently.  Like he was itching to get it off, fearing now (just as she’d hoped) that his magic potion was more poison than a panacea.

She offered a sad smile, probably fake enough to see through but Sutter was too rattled to notice.  Then she feigned a sudden thought.  “Oh, there’s one more thing the serum does…  A rumor, really, but maybe you’ll want to be aware.”  She walked right up to him now, hips swaying just a bit, eyes dark, throwing what she knew she did _very well_ into her movements.  His eyes went absolutely wide, just like Rumlow had said they would yesterday, staring at her like he didn’t know if he was incredibly terrified or incredibly turned on.  Either way he was like putty in her hands, and all that extra strength and speed meant nothing.  He backed up until he hit the railing of the pier right behind them.  Nowhere to go.  No way to escape.  She smiled just a bit, leaned _very_ close, and whispered the last thing she had to tell him, the last side effect, right in his ear.

Needless to say, he ripped the things off his arms right after that, and the rest of his formula drained onto the stones of the pier before dripping into the harbor below.

Natasha wasted no time cuffing him and reading him his rights.  _Finishing_ her mission objectives.  The STRIKE Team came closer, weapons still raised, but it didn’t matter now.  She had this well under control.  Sutter was in complete shock, sputtering and then sobbing a little as he hung his head.  He seemed to be shrinking before her very eyes.  She felt _zero_ sympathy for him, rough as she patted him down.  “You want to know why I’m an Avenger?” she hissed in his ear as she finished.  She pulled away and glared at him, putting _every ounce_ of the famous, icy venom for which Black Widow was known into her gaze.  Sutter absolutely wilted.  “I’m not the best at everything, not by far.”  She dragged her finger up his heaving chest before lightly pushing him back into the railing again.  “But I’m really, _really_ good at some things.  Like playing you, little man.”

That was all the warning she gave before she kicked him.  The force of it flipped him over the railing, and with a very undignified wail he tumbled into the harbor.  He struck the water with a huge splash.  She glanced over from above to see him emerge, gasping and crying piteously for help.  Rolling her eyes, she turned.

Rumlow was right behind her.  “What the hell are you doing?” he demanded.

“Making sure it’s safe for you, babe,” she said sweetly.  Then she glared at him, too.  “Now fish him out.”

Rumlow’s jaw fell limply open as she strolled right by them all, by Rumlow and Rollins and all Rumlow’s lackeys, and left them in her wake.  And she went right to Steve where he was leaning his hip into the railing further back, watching with his arms folded over his chest, his shield still on his back, and a grin on his lips.  He tipped his head at her approach, smoothly pushed himself off the pier, and walked away at her side.  “Is the situation secure, Agent Romanoff?”

That curl of a smile came back, and this time she let it grow until she was grinning and grinning and _grinning_.  “It certainly is, Captain Rogers.”

_It certainly is._

* * *

And that, as they say, was that.

Sutter was in custody.  Khandar was in custody.  Their dreams of an army of super soldiers enhanced by ridiculously potent, serum-inspired steroids were dashed.  The super juice formula was lost.  The threat had been completely contained.  Mission accomplished, with no shots fired, no international spectacle, no _nothing_.  Furthermore, rumors about the potential reassignment of Black Widow so that she no longer was partners with Captain America had been rather summarily and quickly quashed.  The rest of the gossip died a silent death, murdered by the reappearance of Natasha’s _normal_ poise, confidence, and control.  The self-fulfilling prophecy had been entirely averted.  Not just averted.  _Stomped into nothingness._

All in all, it was a pretty good end to a really shitty week.

They were back in DC about twelve hours later.  It was late Saturday night, a hot one, and most of the city was out enjoying it.  They weren’t.  They’d left the Triskelion in record time and headed back to their apartment after stopping to pick up some burgers and fries.  Then they’d plopped down in front of the TV, Steve devouring his mammoth portion of food and going through about four bottles of beer like he was drinking water, Natasha enjoying her more reasonably sized share (even though it was heavy and greasy and something she wouldn’t usually have but, _God_ , it tasted good after everything).  She was feeling a little loose and inebriated as they sat close and fed each other fries and shared the last beer in the fridge and laughed their way through a couple of their favorite episodes of _Parks and Recreation_ on Netflix.  Like any other night after a mission.  _Normal._

She wiped a little blob of ketchup off his lower lip, and he caught her thumb in his mouth, nipping lightly before sucking.  She could see his eyes darken as he did it, all his attention on her now rather than the television.  _Good._   He wasn’t too tired (which was exceedingly rare) or not in the mood (which was less rare but still pretty uncommon).  Not that she was up to anything.  Not at all.  Not that she had a plan.  Not like she was Black Widow and ensnaring her unsuspecting mate just a little.

Okay, maybe a lot.

But not yet.  Apparently he had something to say.  She could see it in his eyes as he kissed her palm and turned her hand over to drift his lips over her knuckles where they were just a little scraped and bruised from the mission.  “You’re beautiful,” he finally murmured after silently worshipping a moment or two.  He looked at her through his lashes, and there was nothing but love there.  Love and respect.  “And I know you don’t like it when I say stuff like this because for some reason you think you don’t deserve to hear it, but you deserve it, so you need to just shut up and let me say it.”

It wasn’t the compliment, though her hard life, where success was met with simply less pain and where distrust had been bred into her, had made it difficult for her to believe someone was being genuine and not manipulative.  It was _him_ saying these things to her.  He’d been the one to teach her what it _meant_ to be genuine, and it undid her every time.  It undid her differently than Rumlow’s insults or the gossip or her own doubts had.  Steve’s faith in her made her stronger, braver.  _Better._ And _that_ was something she wasn’t sure she’d ever deserve.  “Steve…”

“You kicked ass today.”  He leaned over to kiss her, his lips still tangy with ketchup and his mouth tasting of beer and his touch so reverent.  When he pulled away, he cupped her face and looked right into her eyes.  “You really did.  You got the job done without firing a gun.  I couldn’t do that.  No one else could.”

“Steve–”

“You should be proud of yourself.”  She was.  She was proud of herself in a way she hadn’t ever really been before.  It was warm and true, pure in a sense, as pure and noble as what she felt for him.  She was proud she’d been smarter than anyone, stronger than her doubts, better than her insecurities.  She was proud that she’d followed her instincts.  Part of her felt a little stupid for getting so caught up in her anxieties in the first place, for letting them run so amuck, but she supposed that was only natural.  It happened to everyone once in a while.  Nobody was perfect.

She smiled, and her eyes stung just a bit when she admitted how she felt to him.  “I am.  Just a little.”

He smiled, too, and kissed her again, this time a little more tenderly.  His thumbs swept over her cheeks.  “You know I wouldn’t be half the man I am if it wasn’t for you,” he whispered into her lips.

There it was with the grinning again.  “Flatterer,” she teased, her voice cracking.

“Like I said, you deserve it.”  He ran his fingers through her hair, staring into her eyes with such intensity that it was almost too much, how much he loved her.  How much he trusted her.  How much he wanted _her._   He lowered his face to her neck, nibbling and kissing, pushing the straps of her cami and bra aside.  His voice was a deep purr against her skin.  “Bed?”

She tried to seem nonchalant, tried not to melt into his touch.  That would be counterproductive.  “Sure.  I’m just going to go get something first.”

“Something?” he asked, confused, raising his face from her shoulder.

“Work-related.”

His face fell a little at that.  It was so pathetically adorable that someone with less skill at controlling her emotions probably would have cracked (or at least betrayed herself).  Natasha didn’t, though.  “Oh.  Okay.  Thought we’d–”

She pecked his lips and stood.  “Back in a second.”

Somewhat put out, he watched her go down the hall to the front areas of their apartment.  She couldn’t help but tease him a little, swaying her hips just so and glancing over her shoulder at him with a suggestive smile to give him just a little hope.  He caught that, smiled back, and started to clean up the remains of their dinner.

Smiling now to herself, she headed to the guest bathroom and closed the door behind her.  The bag she’d put in the linen closet when they’d gotten back before was waiting for her.  It was time to put her plan into motion.

Maybe fifteen minutes later, she emerged, make-up light and clean (just the way Steve liked it, though he’d never said it.  She could tell, though) and hair thick and loose and wavy (just the way he liked that, too, though again he’d never presume to tell her how to look).  She’d put on a silk robe over what she was wearing underneath, and she had her prize (stealthily pinched from the armory in the Triskelion – hopefully no one would check inventory until Monday…) hidden behind her back.  Her feet were light and silent on the hardwoods as she crept back to the bedroom.  She knew exactly where to step to avoid the creaks and moans, so when she reached the door, Steve hadn’t heard her coming.

He was laying in their bed wearing only a pair of light blue cotton sleep pants, upper body propped against the pillows.  The bathroom light was on, as well as his bedside lamp, and he looked warm and golden in the soft shadows of their bedroom.  His bare feet were crossed at the ankles, and he was working with a tablet, the light of it turning his face bright and ethereal.  She stared a moment because how could she not?  She watched the muscles of his chest languidly work as he breathed, watched the light play across the miles and miles of flawless skin, watched his fingers swipe across the screen, watched his eyes narrow with concentration and him chew his lower lip like he sometimes did when he read.  He thought she was beautiful?  _He_ was beautiful.  Maybe there was no such thing as perfection, as the _best_ human specimen imaginable, but she realized all over again that he was as close as it got.

She was going show him just how much he was tonight.  And just how much she needed him.  And – _I know I can do this_ – just how much _he_ needed _her._   Just how good she was.  He could say it, mean it, _know_ it, but she was going to make him _feel_ it like he never had before.  Not being satisfied?  A thing of the past.  She was going to make sure of that.  He wasn’t going to know what hit him.

She grinned mischievously with those thoughts, feeling beautiful and powerful, feeling _every bit_ the seductress she knew she was, as she sashayed slowly into the room.  “Steve?”

He didn’t look up from his tablet.  “What?”

 _You’re making this easy, Rogers._   She climbed up onto the bed (which was a little tricky with her hand behind her back bearing her tools for the evening), but she managed it, crawling, _slinking_ toward him.  “Steve…” she sing-songed.

He finally looked up from his tablet, and his eyes immediately went as wide as saucers.  “Whoa,” he gasped as she climbed over him, straddling his thighs and settling herself in his lap.  She didn’t give him much of a chance to do anything else, kissing him hard, pushing her tongue into his mouth the second their lips touched.  He grunted in surprise as she pulled his tablet away and tossed it carefully to the nightstand.  His hands went to her hips, but she grabbed his left, pushing it back as she delved deeper into his mouth.  She tasted the sweet mint of toothpaste, tangling her tongue with his and rolling her hips over his groin.  This time when he grunted, he shuddered a little, and she was able to push his hand to the headboard.  “Nat?”

She wove their fingers together, holding him there, and gave him another push of her hips down onto his.  Through the thin material of his pajamas, it was obvious he was already getting hard.  It never took much.  Pleased, she pressed herself against his chest and forced him to tip his head back to look up at her.  “I want to try something,” she declared, lips drifting down his jaw a bit.

“Um…  Okay?”

She grinned against his throat, running her teeth there just to feel him shiver again.  She kissed around his neck before nipping his earlobe.  “I want to try something,” she said again, this time low and right in his ear, “for you.”

“What’re you…”  She moved fast, crowding him so that he couldn’t really see, kissing him so that he couldn’t really talk, and bringing her secret weapon forward from behind her back.  With her one hand holding his in place, she snapped it around his wrist with the other.

Steve jerked and broke the kiss, and his eyes went impossibly wider when he saw what she’d done, when he saw the reinforced magnetic cuff around his wrist that they’d been given for the mission.  The one developed by Stark Industries and given to SHIELD R&D so that SHIELD could contend with enhanced enemies.  The one she’d snuck off to pilfer from the armory earlier that day with help from a guard there who owed her one for covering for her six months ago.  The one tested by a super soldier to be certain it was strong enough to _hold_ a super soldier.  _That one_.

There seemed to be a war on Steve’s face between paling completely in shock and blushing hard in arousal and embarrassment.  He gulped.  “I thought you said you went to get something for work!”

“I said work-related,” she corrected.

“Nit-picking!”  He seemed horrified.  His erection certainly hadn’t flagged any, though, despite how he was shaking his head and burning scarlet and sputtering.  “You can’t – I mean, you shouldn’t – I mean, oh, God, don’t do that!”  She rolled her hips again, _harder_ , right on his length, and he moaned, tipping his head back.  He didn’t once try to pull his hand away.  “This…  This is a misappropriation of SHIELD resources.”

She laughed huskily, enjoying that flush creeping down his neck and chest immensely.  It took her back to when they’d first started sleeping together and he’d been sweetly nervous and completely inexperienced.  How far he’d come since then.  Tonight she wanted to take him so much farther.  “I want to do this for you.”  She let go of his left hand and picked up his right where it was nervously clenched in the blanket beside them.  His fingers released their death grip in the fabric, and she brought his hand to her mouth, kissing his palm then up his fingers.  “I want you to feel the way I feel.  I want you to be that satisfied.”

“Natasha, I’m always–”

She pushed a finger to his lips to silence him.  “No, you’re not.  I know you’re not.  That’s not my fault.  I know that now, and I was stupid to think it was.  But that doesn’t mean it’s not my problem.  And it doesn’t mean I don’t want to fix it.”  She trailed that finger down his heaving chest.  “And I know you think I can’t get you there, or that it’s not fair for me to do it, but I _want_ to try.  I want to make you feel as good and perfect as I feel every time you touch me.”  Gently she thrust down on him again, ignoring the heat pooling in her own core, watching his eyelids flutter as he bit back another groan.  “Every time you kiss me.”  She leaned down to do just that, and there was nothing at all restrained about it.  It was powerful and demanding, her taking and him giving.  She pulled away to allow him a breath, staring down into his eyes.  They were swimming in desire, deep and dark with his pupils blown wide.  “Every time you’re inside me.  When I can’t think about anything else, feel anything else, and I’m so tired and so happy and so completely _filled_ by you that there’s no place you haven’t touched.”

“Jesus, Nat…”

She grinned before biting his lower lip playfully.  Then she leaned up and reached for the other mag cuff where she’d dropped it on the bed.  “And if you’re so caught up on the equity of the situation, this removes that issue.”  She snapped that cuff carefully around his other wrist, and he watched every second of it.  She pressed his second hand to the headboard, close to his first, and held them both there, grinning slyly.  “You won’t have to worry about touching me.”

This was far out of his comfort zone.  _Far_ out of it.  _She_ knew that.  Sex with Steve was _amazing_ , rough when it needed to be and tender when it didn’t but always so passionate and powerful in all the right ways…  But it wasn’t terribly _adventurous_ (she wouldn’t use the word kinky because that had maybe some unwarranted connotation that she didn’t like, but it did fit).  But she didn’t think _staying_ where he was experienced and content and where everything was easy and well-trodden would get this done.  He needed to be challenged, if that was the right way of thinking about it, and she wanted the challenge of challenging him.

Still, she wasn’t about to push him into something he didn’t want to do.  So she looked down on him, letting go of his hands to cup the smoothness of his cheeks, and kissed him more gently.  “I’m okay with this,” she whispered.  “Are you?

For a split second, she was afraid he’d say no.  After all, comfort zone aside, this required an awful lot of trust on his part.  This wasn’t really just fluffy-cuffing him to the bed and having a good time and then calling it a night or her playfully pinning him down when she was feeling more dominant and demanding.  These were made to _restrain him_ ; he’d (apparently) tested them himself.  He wouldn’t be able to get free, wouldn’t be able to escape.  Of course, that was part of the thrill of this, but it was a consideration.  She could tell he was nervous.  She was sure he could break the headboard if he really wanted out, but there was no doubt he’d be in a vulnerable position.

And, if he said no, embarrassed wouldn’t begin to describe how she’d feel.  So in that split second, where he looked at her and bit his lip and shivered just a little through a breath as he considered what she was suggesting, she was pretty terrified.

But there was something about Steve Rogers that no one else knew.  The bravery and determination and never backing down from a fight was pretty common knowledge.  But the being a little shit part?  That seemed to be reserved just for her.  “Go ahead,” he said with a smirk.  “Hit me with your best shot.”

His voice shook a little, and that nervousness was still there in spades, but it was mixed with excitement and anticipation and a great deal of arousal.  So much for him not being on board with this.  Natasha grinned, reaching for the chain to the handcuffs.  She looped it around the central wrought iron post of the bedframe twice.  Then she pulled his hands there and connected each end to the cuffs.  Pressing her thumb to the controls, the manacles powered up, joining to the chain and to each other, and coded her fingerprint to its releasing mechanism.  She couldn’t stop the little rush of heady exhilaration that jolted through her when he jerked beneath her.  She touched his fingers, comforting and checking to make sure he was okay, before lightly caressing down the sensitive skin of his forearms to his elbows.  “Comfy?” she cooed.

“Oh, hell,” he moaned, testing for testing’s sake.  The chain rattled, but he wasn’t going anywhere.  She got her weight off him, scooching to the side with a swish of silk over the blanket, and admired her handiwork.  Drinking him in, really, the long length of him, muscles flexing as he struggled lightly.  He was tense now, body trapped between the natural, frightened state of being tied up and the stirring heat of desire.  He was incredible, as helpless as he could be _for her_ , laid out like this for her to touch and taste and play with and control.  Every bit of pleasure he got now would be because _she_ gave it to him.  God, that turned her on.  Her inner thighs felt wet and her heart was pounding and it took some doing to get her own breathing under control.

Steve slumped, licking his lips and squirming restlessly though she didn’t have a hand on him.  “Nat, God…”

She couldn’t resist tormenting him.  That was the point of this, after all.  Tormenting him until he couldn’t think straight, couldn’t feel anything except for how badly he needed her, and then getting him off and getting him off and _getting him off_ until he was _spent._   So she sat there and let him wriggle a bit before answering.  “What?”  She dragged a nail lightly down his sternum, down to his navel, and just a little lower, teasing at the waistband of his pajama pants which were tenting _ridiculously_.  “What, baby?”

“You gotta…”  He was already panting.  Sweating already.  Begging already.  This had been a _really_ good idea.  “You gotta touch me or kiss me or somethin’!”

She leaned down to chastely capture his lips in a sweet, short brush.  “Not exactly what I had in mind...” she murmured as she pulled away.  He leaned up, trying to get more, chasing her, but he couldn’t.  She was already gone, already off the bed, and out of his reach.

“Wait!  Where’re you…”  She pulled the chair from the desk over.  She stood in front of it, watching him with a devilish smirk curling her lips that she didn’t even try to control.  Now his eyes became impossibly _wider_ with dawning realization as she slowly, ever so slowly, ran her hands up from her thighs, up her stomach, and to her breasts.  He flushed and buried his face into his bicep.  “No…  Oh, no, no, _no…_ ”

“Yes.  Eyes on me, soldier,” she ordered lowly, and his gaze snapped right back to her.  “What?  You’ve seen it before.”  She took the silk sash of her robe and untied it.

Steve swallowed and gave a small shake of his head.  “Not like this,” he said in a throaty whisper.

She hummed a little, drawing it out as she pulled the sash away and let it drift to the floor.  “You want to touch me…”  She pushed the robe off her shoulders in a slow, sensuous show of skin.  It puddled on the floor by her ankles.

“God, Nat…”  She knew what she looked like.  The little, black chemise was simple but sexy.  She’d bought it some time ago but had never worn it, and the moment she’d thought of doing this on the ride home from the Middle East, it had popped into her mind like it was meant to be.  The fabric was satin, clinging to her skin, hugging her figure in a way that left very little to the imagination.  Lace lined the halter top, which dove low between her breasts, and the bottom hem where it brushed the tops of her thighs.  It had a clean, elegant feel to it, one that she thought was timeless.  Slit on the sides, a hint of the matching panties showed when she turned just so, which she did now so he could see.  He groaned again and breathed harder.  “God Almighty…”

“You want to touch me,” she said again.  She sat in the chair, staring at him, hardly even blinking.  He stared back.  “You want to make sure it’s good for me, right?”  She accentuated that by sweeping her hands down her collarbones and over her breasts again, harder this time.  “So tell me.”

His brain was only partially functioning, it seemed, and that made sense considering how most of his blood had to be down south to be fueling what looked like the biggest hard-on she’d ever seen him have.  It was absolutely straining against his pajama pants.  He sputtered, shaking his head.  “Wh-what?”

“Tell me what to do.  Tell me what _you’d_ do,” she quietly commanded, rubbing one hand across the satin over her breasts and sending the other down her belly.  She’d done things like this before, years and years ago as an agent of the Red Room.  She’d never enjoyed it, but the training had pushed her inhibitions down so far that it had simply been another aspect of her mission.  Now seeing the look on his face made everything worth it.  And she knew what she was doing, how to turn a man inside out.  He looked like he was already most of the way there.  “Tell me.”

His face was _burning_.  It never ceased to amaze her how much embarrassment and arousal seemed to feed off each other.  “Nat, I–”

She pinched her nipple and arched her back, making just a little show of how good it felt for his benefit.  Spreading her legs, she pulled up the chemise a bit, revealing her panties.  She ran her fingers along her thigh slowly, teasingly, drifting higher.  “Tell me, Steve.”

He wasn’t much of a talker during sex.  It was an occasion where he swore, and she _really_ had to get him going to get him to say anything dirty.  Considering he looked like he wanted to bolt, she knew this was going to be difficult for him.  To his credit, though…  “Higher,” he rasped, squirming harder against his bounds, shifting his hips uncomfortably.  The sound of his voice like that, wrecked already, sent a shock of pleasure straight through her far more efficiently than her own touch.  She danced her fingertips closer to her core but didn’t go any further.  Not until he said.  “Touch yourself… right there.”

“Here?” she teased, dragging her fingertip in the crease of her thigh right along the edge of her panties.  “Here.”  She let herself press through the fabric against the bundle of nerves there just to feel the sweet rush of pleasure.

He shook his head, desperate, stammering.  “N-no.  Under.”

“Oh.  Like this.”  She went down from her stomach, not wanting him to see too much at first.  Achingly slowly, she slipped her fore and middle fingers under the top of her panties, pushing them out enough so that it was clear what she was doing.  She slid them between her folds.  “Now what?”

Christ, that was cruel.  He shivered, the handcuffs shaking just a little.  “Rub it,” he managed.  “Rub your…”  He couldn’t get the word out, and she took pity on him and filled in the obvious blank, doing exactly what he asked and touching herself. 

It felt ridiculously good, even more so with him watching.  She sighed, letting herself enjoy it for a bit, before focusing on him again.  He was sweating hard now as she put on this little show for him, tracking everything she did, drinking in each intoxicating detail, watching _every_ motion of her fingers under her panties.  “What about this hand?”  He didn’t seem capable of dealing with that, shaking his head lamely with his eyes half-lidded but unblinking.  It was getting harder to concentrate, seeing him like that, feeling like this, so she stopped a moment to get his attention and gather herself.  She ran her other fingers across her breasts, and his gaze snapped right to it.  “What should I do with it?”

“Go in,” he said, more forcefully now.  “And…  Yeah, and squeeze…”  She did, pushing her hand into the cup of the chemise and grabbing her breast.  He moaned a little whimper of mounting need, and his hips jerked again and again.  “Nat…”

She pinched her nipple, rolling it between her thumb and index finger until it was peaked underneath the satin.  Leaning back in the chair, she spread her legs even wider.  “Watch,” she said, even though his eyes hadn’t left her for a second.  She squeezed her nipple again, harder to feel that tiny lick of pain, and went back to it, exploring herself, imagining it was _his_ hand as much as he was.  The tingle of pleasure grew and grew, and she moaned, arching her back and touching herself faster.

“Inside,” he suddenly commanded, his voice deep and desperate.  “Put your finger in…”

She did, driving it inside herself, once, twice, and he gave a strangled whine that sounded so familiar that she had to stop and look.  He was caught up in his orgasm, having reached it _completely_ untouched.  She couldn’t give a thought to anything other than watching him, watching this, because it was incredible.  His eyes were squeezed shut, his biceps bulging against the cuffs, his feet planted on the mattress to thrust his hips upward.  He was lost in it, lost in the pleasure he’d found in _her_ pleasure.  It was quite possibly the most erotic thing she’d ever seen.

He came down a few seconds later, trembling and panting through clenched teeth, going boneless against the bed with a sizeable wet spot on the crotch of his pajama pants.

 _One down._ And she didn’t waste a second, her own pleasure forgotten as she pushed herself up and out of the chair and attacked while he was still riding the aftershocks.  She climbed onto the bed, crawling over to him, and curled her fingers in the waistband of his pants and pulled them and his underwear off in one quick motion.  His erection was wet and still prominent thanks to his ridiculously short refractory period, and she immediately swallowed down as much as she could.  He cried out, bucking and yanking at the cuffs, but she’d been prepared, pulling back with a lick but gouging her nails into his hips to remind him to be still.  Somewhere in the haze in his head he thought to follow her command, settling back down.  She knew how sensitive he got right after coming, but she was relentless, forcing him through it as she swirled her tongue over him and sucked hard and laved and bobbed her head and sucked hard again.  It barely took anything at all.  She knew all the things he liked, the things to make him fall apart, and fall apart he did.  His second orgasm seemed to take him by surprise, and he couldn’t quite stop himself from thrusting into her mouth.  Though she was a little surprised herself, she was ready, keeping herself from gagging and swallowing instead, working him through it and watching his face again just to see it, to see what she’d done to him.  When the last of it was dribbling onto her tongue, she gave him a parting lick and then a gentle kiss before sliding up his body, the satin of her chemise gliding in the sheen of perspiration on his chest.  He jerked, shivering, mindless.  She smiled.  _That’s two._

“How’re you doing?” she murmured, kissing his throat.  His heart was pounding, a heavy throbbing against her lips when she found and suckled his pulse point.  “Steve?”

His response was a groan.  He looked like he needed a moment, so she gave him one, leaning up on her elbow beside him.  He was still half-hard but wilting faster now.  His abs were shivery as he caught his breath.  She watched him do that, mesmerized a moment by how his muscles worked together, how they were loosening and unwinding with his release.  Her own arousal ached just a bit, but she knew she could ignore it.  Instead, she distracted herself by checking his hands just to be sure he wasn’t hurting himself, which he wasn’t.  Pleased, she ran the flat of her palm up his belly just to feel his muscles shudder under her touch, letting him come down all the way this time.  When he did, he groaned.  “You’re…”  He licked his lips, eyes open to slits.  “You’re evil.”

She laughed.  “You haven’t seen evil yet.”

“What about y–”

“Don’t even,” she warned, reaching his pec to pinch him in warning.  “Don’t you dare.”  She thumbed the spot she’d just assaulted before leaning down to run her tongue over it.  “When I decide.”  She’d come pretty close to her own release before fairly unwittingly.  Not that that would have been bad, per se, but she’d didn’t want to come until she was certain he was well on his way to being completely pleased.  She wanted to do that for him.  He always took so much care when they made love to make sure she got hers (multiple times, no less).  This was about him, and she wanted him to see that.  “And not a moment before.”

His moan was nothing short of wanton, despairing just a little.  “Kiss me?”

She obliged him, leaning down to capture his lips.  There was nothing restrained about it, and he groaned when her tongue surged into his mouth.  She knew why.  He could taste himself, his sweat and his release.  He twisted to kiss deeper, and she could feel him stirring anew against her thigh.  She looked down just to see and then smiled before kissing him again, this time slowly, carefully, exploring his mouth, caressing his teeth with her tongue and dragging his lower lip along with her as she pulled back.  This time…  This time he was going to have to work for it.

She spent a moment more kissing him, never letting him have control even though he fought for it.  Every time his tried to dominate with his lips and tongue, she pulled away, leaving him trying to follow her in futility.  She stayed calm, doling out contact as she saw fit, taking her time with each kiss until he was getting frustrated with how little say he had in anything.  “Nat, come on…”  She shifted to straddle his stomach, which won her another hoarse whine since there was no way he couldn’t feel just how warm and wet she was.  Rolling her hips just a little in a cruel tease considering how she wasn’t where he wanted her, she grinned deviously, leaning back and touching her breasts again.  She pushed them together, teased herself, felt his eyes on her, devouring her as he helplessly squirmed with just close she was but still so maddeningly out of reach.  “Please, _please_ let me…”

Mercy wasn’t much in her nature, but, then again, giving only to take wasn’t exactly mercy, was it?  She leaned forward, lowering her chest to his mouth, and he immediately struggled for better leverage.  There wasn’t much, not with the cuffs and not with her pinning him as she was, but he craned his face up as much as possible and buried it in the valley between her breasts.  She grabbed at his hands, as his teeth scraped over her left nipple.  He immediately drew it into his mouth, sucking hard through the satin and sending a bolt of pleasure right between her legs.  It was difficult not to indulge just a second, so she did, whimpering before she could stop herself.  He groaned at that, like the relief of being able to please her was in itself blissful, but when he tried to move to the other breast, she was gone.  “Nat, no!”

“Shhh,” she whispered, leaning back down to kiss him.  It was desperate on his part, but she didn’t let him have it, again leaving his lips to nose up his chin and kiss her way down his throat.  She slowly moved down his chest, unfurling gracefully like a cat, dipping her tongue in the hollow of his throat to taste the saltiness of sweat there before tracing it along his collarbones.  She couldn’t contain her mischievous grin, pausing in her ministrations to glance up at him before digging her thumbs lightly into both his pecs.  His eyes widened again as he realized where this was going.  Pinching one nipple, she lowered her lips to the other. 

“That’s not fair,” he groaned, giving up on watching and sinking into the pillows.  “That’s not…”  His words died in a hoarse whimper.  She licked and nibbled and suckled at his nipple, mouthing at it until the little bud was firm with blood between her lips, and he whined.  She’d always figured this was a sensitive area for him (though with the serum, where _wasn’t_ he sensitive?  Still, this was definitely a hot spot).  And it was a cruel role reversal, particularly considering how much he enjoyed doing this to her.  She could see why.  There was something sweetly empowering about this, particularly now.  He had no choice but to lie back and take it as she tortured him.  When she finished with one side, she went right to the other, capturing its nipple in between her teeth and biting just shy of pain before sucking hard.  He gasped and jerked.  “Oh, God…”

“Feels good, huh?” she whispered, pulling off to blow cool air over the little reddened peak.

His whimper was enough of an answer.  That and his renewed erection poking into her belly.  She gave his nipple a parting kiss before moving lower, licking her way down his stomach but keeping her weight off his groin.  His magnificent eight pack of abs was heaving with breath again, and she took her time there, too, sliding her tongue over every hill and valley before dipping it into his navel.  She ran her hands lightly up and down his sides, teasingly into his ribs where she knew he was extremely ticklish.  He jolted, the cuffs clanking against the posts of the headboard.  “No, no,” he whimpered.  His voice was strained enough with actual dislike that she eased away from that, replacing her fingers with her lips, lining his ribs with wet, hot kisses, spending time exploring _every inch_ of glistening skin.  “God, Natasha…”

She didn’t rush, not even as he got impatient and searched for pressure on his erection, as he thrusted up into nothing.  Ignoring was just as powerful as obliging sometimes, and she could see the frustration building in his eyes.  When she finally made her way to the V of his hips, he actually whimpered in relief.  She licked along the crease of his thigh, breathing in the musk of him, but still she didn’t touch where he wanted.  “Jesus,” he pathetically whispered.  “You’re killing me.”  She said nothing, kissing down his thigh instead, feeling the big muscles there clench in anticipation.  She glanced at his erection, which was achingly hard and deep red at this point, dripping wetness from its tip all over his lower belly.  It was evil, but she skimmed right over it and paid his other thigh the same attention, kissing and tracing its contours with her tongue.  Then she settled between his legs and just stared at him, at his manhood like she was _studying_ it, analyzing it, waiting and _knowing_ he was watching her do that and loving how it was driving him crazy.  He struggled under the scrutiny, under the teasing torment of her breath ghosting over him.  “Nat, do something…  Please…”

She did something alright.  Smoothly she climbed over him again, planting her knees astride her hips before lowering herself right over him.  He cried out, arching right into her heat.  Her soaked panties ran right over his thickening length.  She paused there, letting the pressure tease him, before shifting her hips a little.  He gasped and threw his head back as she rode him like this.  He had to be so sensitive that even the feel of the satin catching against him was too much.  And too much of an _awful_ tease, considering how badly he wanted to be inside her.  “Oh, God.  God, please, please, _please…_ ”  She reached down between them to pull her panties aside and let his shaft slip right between her folds.  _God,_ that was good.  Too much but not enough, _never_ enough.  He descended into a moaning mess as she rocked over him like this.  She’d be much the same were it not for her sheer determination to hold herself back.  It was so close to inside her _but not_ , and every time she moved his length rubbed right against where she was most sensitive.  _God._   She stared at his face, at his reddened lips, swollen and spit-slicked from kissing.  At his eyelashes fluttering against his cheeks as his eyes rolled back a bit.  At the sweat dampening his hair and rolling down his throat.  He was beautiful.

And she _was_ evil.  She angled herself up just a little, pulling her panties firmer to the side, and let him slide up into her.  He cried out immediately, bowing his back and driving his hips up, but the firm grip of her thighs on his sides and her nails curling into his pecs sternly reminded him of who was in charge.  It took so much restraint (because the way he was filling her was so deep, so perfect, and she was starting to want her own release so badly) but she moved slowly, purposefully, controlling the angle and the speed and the depth and bringing him right to the edge.  She gauged it all from his face, from his moans and the way his muscles contracted and how fiercely he was shaking as he tried to stay still.  How hard he was pulling against the cuffs.  The second his breathing picked up to that fevered rate and his mouth fell open with a desperate cry, she pulled right off him and reached between them to grab the base of his erection and squeeze hard.

He _wailed_ as she stopped him from climaxing.  It was incredible to see him struggle against it, to be so close to what he wanted only to have it all taken away.  There was nowhere he could go, nothing he could do, bound as he was and helpless, and she almost came herself just from watching.  From feeling his length pulse with the aborted motion.  Sweat prickled over her skin and she was shivering through a breath herself, but she held him and forced him back and _denied_ him.  “What the hell…” he moaned once he had some capacity to think and speak.  “No, no, no, why would you, why, why, _no_ …”

“Shhh,” she whispered.  The bedroom was silent save for pounding hearts and rushed breaths and his pitiful whimpers.  She inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly a few times to get herself under control, too.  Her hand was still clamped around him like iron, squeezing hard, and she stayed that way until she was sure he wasn’t going to come if she simply let go.  When she finally released him, he sagged into the bed.  “Shhh, baby.  Shhh.”

Coming back from the edge, from the very precipice, took him a moment.  When he did, when his eyes opened again to reveal hazy confusion and his breathing settled to something reasonable, she went right back at it.  She gripped the base of his length again, finding him absolutely throbbing with need, and stroked upward slickly.  At the same time, she closed her mouth over the tip and suckled gently.  He sputtered on his breath, sputtered and whined and _sobbed_.  She was slow and methodical, teasing as she caressed him, worshipped him sweetly.  He tossed his head, and the handcuffs kept rattling.  “Can’t…  Please, Nat, please…”  She touched lower, teasing his sac, fondling and rolling its contents and feeling how drawn up and tight they were.  He whined, eyes wide now and staring at the ceiling.  She’d given him plenty of blow jobs before (earlier included, obviously), but none quite like this.  None so careful, so reverent, so…  She supposed intimate was the word, though that wasn’t to imply the other times hadn’t been.  He’d just never seemed entirely comfortable with it, not with fucking her mouth, not with what she had to do when he came, not with any of that.  He didn’t like the idea that he was using her, no matter how many times she assured him he wasn’t or swore to him it wasn’t any different from him going down on her.  He was never convinced, so he didn’t ever really let go.

Well, he was letting go now, easing into it, thrusting up into the warm heat of her throat because he simply had no choice.  She’d coaxed him into it, and, stripped of his mind’s silly inhibitions, his body was taking over.  His hips rolled, and she rolled with them in a rhythm of taking him deeper before sucking shallowly, being more aggressive and then maddeningly gentle.  She knew his body so well, could bring it to her beck and call.  She’d taught him so much, shown him how be a lover, and he was very good.

But not as good as her.

Steve cried out, teetering on the edge of orgasm again.  She’d watched and sucked and pulled him right to it.  “Please…”  He fumbled at the posts of the bed, holding onto them now like he needed the anchor.  “Oh, please, please, _please…_ ”  She pulled off with a wet kiss, grabbing the base of him again to stop him from coming.  “Oh, fuck,” he whimpered.  She looked up, having never heard him swear quite like that in bed (or _ever_ ) before.  “Oh, fuck.  Fuck.”

“Not yet,” she warned, licking a long line from the base of him to the tip.  “Not yet.”

“Why?” he whined.

She laughed lightly, stroking him more firmly to take him right back to that apex.  “Because I said so.”

“Evil!” he gasped around a dopey, sloppy grin.  She smirked, kissing down his shaft again, teasing the large vein there until he was biting into his bicep and writhing haplessly.  “So, so, evil…”

Laughing again, she dove back in, squeezing at his balls and sucking hard, and he keened.  For a little while longer, she tortured him like this, purposefully driving him right against his orgasm but never letting him _have_ it.  Dragging him to the edge and forcing him to ride it without ever getting there.  It _was_ evil, deliciously so.  He was absolutely soaked in sweat, trembling, reduced to babbling almost incoherently.  His erection looked painful, it was so hard and firm and hot in her hands and between her lips.  Every muscle in his body was tied into knots, his thighs clenched around her, his chest heaving, desperate and frantic and he looked so _amazing_ like this.  She’d done this to him, brought him, brought _Captain America_ , to the brink.  Left him bereft of words and likely most cognitive function.  Focused all of those serum-enhanced senses, so keen and sharp, on her and only her, on only what she was doing to him.  Condensed his world to that.  Commanded every muscle, every nerve, every _cell_ in his body to drive toward one goal.

Only when she said so.

She held him back one more time and then finally took mercy.  He deserved it now, having waited and worked and pretty much suffered for it.  She kissed her way up his chest, licking a stripe through the perspiration on his sternum, before reaching his lips, parted and dried with how hard and fast he was breathing through them.  She took his mouth tenderly for a beat, soothing him with a soft kiss.  Then she stopped squeezing him so hard, thumbing the sensitive head of his erection once more, and whispered, _“Come.”_

He did.  Hard, wild, _frantically._   The bed shuddered as he yanked, and his mouth opened in a silent scream, his eyes clenched shut and his head tipping back.  His body bucked spastically beneath her.  It was almost obscene, just how powerful it was, just how he looked.  She watched it all, feeling her own body respond with a shiver of pleasure.  She’d done that to him.  At her command, he’d given this to her.  The heady rush of power and pride and love was indescribable.

He calmed down a notch, his thrashing quieting as his energy failed him and the pleasure ebbed.  His erection was still firm somehow as he sank back to the bed, and she rose to her hands and knees to reach over him and pull a couple tissues from the bedside table.  He jerked as she wiped him clean, eyes hazily opening to look down at her, and the second their gazes locked, she couldn’t help herself.  Grinning sneakily, she leaned down and licked a bit of his release away from his stomach, tickling at his length lightly with her fingernail.

Christ, that set him off _again._   Shocked, she wasn’t ready at all as he writhed a second time, now with a cut-off yelp.  His orgasm almost seemed punched out of him by simply her teasing touch.  It wasn’t much this time, and didn’t last as long, but it was intense as all get-out.  He rode it out and slumped.  _Three and four._

The room went quiet again.  He was sucking in oxygen like he was starving for it.  Wearily he cracked open an eye.  “Sorry,” he whispered.

She shook her head, reaching for another tissue and wiping the remnants of his climax off her neck.  “It’s okay.  Are _you_ okay?”

His head moved in some sort of vague attempt at a nod.  “’m good.”

“And you’re ridiculous,” she fondly declared.

He moaned weakly.  “Serum.”

She glanced at his erection, which was finally flagging.  “God bless America then.”  A throaty laugh escaped him.  She tossed the wet, wadded tissues to the floor beside the bed and curled up next to him.  “You’ve been denying yourself,” she said after she’d laid her head on his chest for a bit.  His heart was absolutely pounding in a way she’d never heard it do.  He was still shivering, still trying to catch his breath.  “All this time… the fun we could have had with this.”

“’m the only one having fun,” he protested.  God, he sounded _wrecked._   His words were slurred and his voice was a husky, raspy thing.  He squirmed in his bindings with renewed vigor, gaze sharper as he settled on her.  “Please, Nat, love…  Please let me do somethin’ for you.”

It really seemed to bother him, that she hadn’t had pleasure through all this (well, not pleasure like he’d had).  She’d always known that because he’d said it, meant it, taken such care when they were together to ensure her pleasure came before his.  Now, though, now she could see it, see how much he wanted this.  And this was about him, so it didn’t seem quite right to deny him what he wanted…   Or deny herself.  Maybe she’d earned a little something.

So she sat up, leaning over to kiss him firmly and taking a moment to check his hands again.  When she rose onto her knees, her breasts were in his face, but he wasn’t quite as energetic at worshipping them this time.  Still she shuddered and swallowed through a dry throat as he wetly kissed across her chest.  His teeth tugged at her nipple through her chemise, and she dragged in a short, quick breath.  Finding his wrists unhurt (a little red, maybe, but nothing that concerned her too much), she kissed the pads of his fingers tenderly and let him have a moment with her, let the pleasure build again in her core when he suckled and nipped.  She only had so much willpower after all.

Still, she was calling the shots.  She leaned back, grabbing at his hair and pulling his face back.  She looked into his eyes, eyes that were glazed with pleasure and lowly simmering desperation.  “No hands,” she warned, caressing his cheekbone with her thumb.

He winced in unhappiness.  “Let me touch you…  Please…”

She’d never thought (well, she had to be honest with herself.  A _small_ part of her _had_ thought) she’d been so turned on by him begging.  That knot inside her tightened, and she could feel herself get wetter again, aching in emptiness.  “No hands, baby,” she said again.

He was smart so he immediately figured out what she was suggesting.  And he nodded.  She tugged his hair again, bringing his face up for a kiss, wet and heavy and open.  He was more forceful now, plunging his tongue into her mouth to entangle it with hers, and she moaned, clumsily working to get her panties down with a free hand.  It wasn’t her most elegant moment for sure, lip-locked with him as she squirmed and peeled them off.  She managed, though, and she reached behind him to pull the pillows away before helping him get his hands down the post so he was laying flatter.  She shivered in anticipation, heat pooling between her legs at the mere thought of what he wanted to do.  She straddled his chest, looking down again to be certain he was okay, that he was okay with this.  In a way, there was vulnerability to this that there hadn’t been before.  It was something else they’d done plenty of times before but not this way.  Not with him unable to stop if he wanted to.

His eyes were so dark with passion, though, heavy on hers, drifting down her face and her body to the juncture of her thighs still shrouded in black satin, and he licked his lips.  He didn’t want to stop.  Assured by that, she slid forward, keeping her weight off his neck as much as possible, and lowered herself to his face.

The first touch of his tongue was tentative, but that tiny lick sent a jolt through her that had her gasping.  He knew what he was doing, and it didn’t take long at all before he was steadily darting through her folds, seeking her most sensitive place and focusing on it.  Natasha closed her eyes against the onslaught of sensation.  She’d been closer to the edge than she’d thought, and every brush of his mouth to her was electrifying.  Built-up pressure coiled even more inside her as he found that cluster of nerves and licked and probed before closing his lips around it and suckling.  “Oh, God,” she whispered, eyes rolling back into her head.  She rolled her hips against the stimulation, unable to keep still.  “Oh, God.  God.  Steve…”  She grabbed the top of the headboard, trying to be gentle as she ground her hips down onto his face.  It was damn difficult, and sweat broke out all over her skin, prickling across her and dampening her hair as she struggled to hold on.  She _had_ to, because she knew this was going to get better, and after all the torturing she’d done of him, it would be a sad shame and a complete embarrassment if she couldn’t last more than a second or two into this.

It got ridiculously more strenuous, though, when he tipped his face just so, lower so that his tongue pressed into her.  She threw her head back and cried out.  She couldn’t stop it all, the little scream wrenched from her throat, and he hummed into her appreciatively.  The vibration made it worse.  So did the sight of him struggling against the cuffs, like he _needed_ to touch her and couldn’t stand not being able to, like the distance between her skin and his fingers was physically distressing.  She trembled harder at that, at the pressure of his tongue, at all the ways he knew to drive her wild.  Her thighs shivered with the strain of holding her up around him, and she couldn’t breathe right.  Everything was building so deliciously, the world blurring around its edges, and pretty soon she was right there, right where she’d kept him for forever.

He wasn’t nearly as evil as she was, and he seemed to be caught up in it, too.  She worried a second that she was being too rough, too demanding, suffocating him, maybe, but his writhing didn’t seem distressed as much as aroused (and she knew just how long he could hold his breath).  That thought was swept away, anyway, as his tongue curled and she completely came apart.

She heard herself moan, low and long, and everything went bright.  It was so good, so deep, almost painful for how strong it was, rocking through her in blasts that had her gasping and trembling.  She let everything go and lost herself in it, gave herself to it.

Apparently she wasn’t the only one.  She heard another moan, this one far lower in timber, muffled, and more masculine.  It veritably rumbled against her core.  Her over-sensitized nerves tingled at that, but only for a jolt because Steve shuddered beneath her and threw his head back.  His face was wet and flushed and locked in a grimace that was unmistakably from an orgasm.  She watched in stupefaction for a second, not processing that at all, not putting two and two together (or thinking _at all_ ) until she eased herself off him and turned around.  “You came?  Again?  _From that?_ ”

He groaned, licked swollen lips, and breathed through the last vestiges of his climax.  “Ye-yeah…”

 _That’s five._ Incredible.  Mind-blowing.  _Amazing._

She didn’t know if she wanted to laugh in disbelief or cry because she was so touched that her pleasure meant _that much to him._   Instead she gracelessly scrambled down his body, her bones aching a little and her muscles functioning about as well as wet noodles, and desperately sought his mouth.  She tasted herself there, and she quaked with that, reaching up to cradle his face.  She wiped it clean and kissed again, harder, possessive, because somehow, through all of the hell she’d lived and the horrors she’d done, he was hers.  He was like this, bound and pliant and completely at her mercy, watching her with hazy eyes that were lost in so much pleasure and so open, giving her this most intimate part of himself, _letting_ her do this for him…  It was all because he loved her.  Trusted her. 

_Needed her._

She hadn’t thought about that through this, not since she’d tied his hands, but now the truth came back, warm and precious, and she couldn’t stop the joy racing through her heart.  She wanted to say something, but she didn’t think there were words good enough to explain just how she was feeling, so she didn’t try.  Happiness, she supposed.  Deep, lasting, happiness, so much so that nothing else mattered.  She kissed him again and again, drunk on it, high on it, and he was, too.  Free and floating.

She wanted one more thing, though, one _last_ thing.  Against her thigh, he still wasn’t entirely through.  _Still._   Maybe his mind was, and his heart definitely seemed content with the languid, lazy kisses with which he was responding to her, but his body…  It was a biological reaction.  What had he said?  _Tied to his stupid dick._ She smiled slightly at that, licking her way into his mouth with more fervor and hunger, and the girth of him thickened again as she reached down to touch him.  He gave a half-hearted groan of protest – she could only imagine just how overstimulated he was at this point – but he didn’t ask her to stop as she stroked him erect again.  “One more,” she whispered into his mouth.  He shook his head weakly.  “One, baby.”

“Nat…”

“Inside me.”

“Can’t.  Can’t.”

“Yes, you can.”  She took his mouth, gently, encouragingly.  “Come so I can.”  Now he nodded, like that was motivation, and she grinned.  She steadied him as she leaned back and then sank down on him.  It was slow, slick, easy, and it felt amazing, despite the fact she was nearly spent, too.  But she couldn’t end it without this.  The sensuous slide of him was delicious, delirious.  He was still hot and big somehow against nerves touched and teased to the point just bordering on pain and discomfort.  Natasha closed her eyes and chewed her lip while she let the sensation overwhelm her, let him fill her like he was meant to,  _made_ to, if she could be forgiven that trite indulgence.  It was silly to think that now, now after all they’d done tonight, after all the times they’d done  _this,_ but  _every time_ felt this way.  Thick and hard and right.  New but so, so familiar.   _Perfect._

He was gasping, pulling weakly at the cuffs, as she took him to the hilt.  She hovered there above him, looking down at him, memorizing the slack expression on his face, the desire still burning deep below the fogginess of his eyes, the way his lips mouthed half-formed words like he no longer had any capacity to think.  She was, but barely.  She grabbed the bottom of her chemise, sweat-soaked and wet with far more than that, and pulled it over her head, baring her breasts at long last to the heat and humidity of the room.  His eyes sparked with vigor at that, at the way her hands drifted down them, down the flatness of her belly, down lower.  She rose up and rolled back, her hips flush to his, letting him _see_ himself disappear inside her body this time.  It was good.  _So good._   She quickly found a rhythm, a modest one because anything more was too hard at this point.  Slow and purposeful, tender and loose.  _So deep._ He was breathing hard but silently, face screwed up with the sensations tenderly taking him.  Like there was nothing rushed, nothing more needed, nothing beyond this moment and her and how well they fit together.  She knew because she felt the same.

_One more._

She fell forward, catching herself tiredly on his chest, feeling the pleasure build inside her.  This, too, was quiet, gentle waves caressing but coming faster and faster.  A hum inside her that was getting louder and louder.  She whimpered to it, the cadence of the beat of her hips against him, of her heart and his hammering beneath her fingertips.  Shivering with the first touches of ecstasy, she leaned down to kiss him.  “I’m…  I’m ready,” she whispered.  _So ready._   So was he.  She could see it in his eyes again, feel his muscles tighten with those waves beneath her as though her pleasure was rolling onto him where it was amplified, mirrored, reverberated back to her.  She closed her eyes, taking his lips a moment in a sweet kiss, before letting it all go.  _“Come with me.”_

He cried out, thrusting up hard as he climaxed again, and that broke the ties holding everything back.  Pleasure exploded over her, suddenly forceful for its lazy and amorous buildup, and the very core of her tightened around him, drawing him deeper inside, as deep as he could be.  Holding him there where he was a part of her and she was a part of him.  Nothing more was needed.  Nothing beyond being together.

It took a lot for Natasha to gather her senses after that.  A lot.  Minutes passed, maybe longer, before she could really take stock of anything.  When she did, she realized she was laying on his chest, his chest that was rising and falling quickly in a frenzied quest for air.  His heart was racing beneath her ear, thundering as fast as hers was, but the rate was beginning to slow as the thrill of it all lovingly faded.  They were both covered in sticky perspiration, the bed clothes rumpled around them, and the air was hot and smelled of sex.  The room was quiet.  Completely silent.

“Holy shit,” he finally whispered.  He shifted a little, the handcuffs clanking against the headboard.  _“Holy shit.”_

She leaned up to look at him, and she saw _exactly_ what she’d set out to see.  Lips bitten red.  Face lax with pleasure too good and intense to fade quickly.  Eyes unfocused, teary even, lost up in bliss.  Cheeks rosy with a flush of heady completion.  Sweat-soaked.  Completely debauched.  Fucked out.  Wrecked and ruined.

_Satisfied._

She couldn’t help the proud grin that came to her face, and he smiled back, shaking still, looking at her with so much disbelief mixed with gratitude and adoration that she couldn’t put words to how she felt.  She’d done it.  _I did it._ “Good?” she asked.  “Better than finishing yourself off when I’m not watching, I hope.”

“Oh, God.  God, yes.  _Yes._ ”  He closed his eyes, sinking into the mattress, spent in a way she’d never fathomed seeing him be.  He was warm and limp and pliant.  Floating on the last breezes of it all.  Contented.  She couldn’t imagine now how she could have ever been fooled before in the moments after they’d finished, thinking it had been enough.  _This_ was true boneless, senseless completion.  “Thank you…  Nat, I – thank you.  Love you so much.  _Thank you.”_

It was stupid and not enough ( _thank you for everything you’ve done for believing me and standing by me and trusting me to handle it and do what you needed)_ , but all she could do was kiss him softly.  “You’re welcome.”  She smiled and brushed her thumb across his lower lip, staring down into his eyes.  It was alright, she saw.  She didn’t need to say anything more, because he knew.  “I love you, too.”

A great, great, _great_ deal of effort was required on her part, but she left the sweet comfort of his side to undo the handcuffs.  They fell away with a soft chirp when she pressed her thumb to the controls.  He lowered his arms with a bit of a wince as she pulled the manacles away, pausing after that to kiss the red lines left in their wake.  It was almost pleasing, in a sense, to see those marks she’d made.  He’d be fine, of course, because they wouldn’t last, but for the moment, it made it seem all that much realer.  Then she got up to fetch a washcloth from the bathroom and grab a bottle of water from the kitchen.  She returned, giving him the water to sip while she wiped him down more thoroughly.  He drank it all, watching her with half-lidded eyes, still not looking like he was entirely back yet.  That was okay.  That was exactly what he’d never had, what he’d needed.  When she was through with cleaning them up, she donned a cotton nightgown and found him a clean pair of boxer briefs, working them up his legs herself because he didn’t seem to have the energy, physical ability, or mental acumen to manage that right now.  Off went the rumpled, wet blanket and on went a clean top sheet.

Happy with everything but completely exhausted, she climbed into bed beside him.  She reached over the dead weight of his satiated body to turn off his bedside lamp.  Then, with the room dark and peaceful, she cuddled close, spooning his hip and draping an arm across his stomach.

One would have thought he’d drop off to sleep instantly, and he seemed to be most of the way there.  But not quite.  “Nat?”

She opened eyes that had been slipping shut.  “What?”

“Back there, you said something to Sutter at the end.  Something that made him surrender.”

“About the side effects?”

“Yeah…  Yeah, what was it?  What’d you say?”

She grinned into his chest.  “I told him you could never come enough to be satisfied.”

It was silent a moment, and for just that moment, she feared she’d overstepped her bounds.  Then he gave a long, giddy laugh.  “Figures that that’d be what it took.”

“Men like that think with their stupid dicks, as you put it.  And _six times_ , Steve.  It’s gotta be some kind of record.”

He grunted another laugh.  “’sides, it’s not true.  I’m wrung out, doll.  I mean it this time.”

“Well,” she said, kissing his chest and snuggling close, “a little white lie never hurt anyone.”

* * *

It was Sunday again.  They slept in a ridiculously long time (which was very unusual for Steve, and Natasha was infinitely proud and pleased about that).  After finally getting up and showering (together, and it had taken a long time to finish with all the kissing mixed in with the washing), they lounged around their apartment for a while, doing some household things that had been neglected during the work week.  There’d been as much kissing and groping and _glowing_ there as there had been in the shower, as they did laundry and swept and dusted, so it was a wonder anything got done.  She chalked it up to the fact that _he_ got done – and done and done and done – that they didn’t end up tearing each other’s clothes off and christening every surface of the place anew.  He actually looked… sore.  Sore in that _good_ way.  Well used and well loved.  It was subtle; no one beside her would have noticed it.  And maybe she was imagining it, because the marks from the cuffs and the scratches from her nails and the bruises she’d left were long gone.  But he was more tender about moving, lethargic, less hungry and enthused about taking a touch or a kiss further, and he was absolutely pleased as punch, as he would say.  Like the cat that got the cream.  Sharing bashful but knowing glances with her, like he couldn’t stop thinking about the night before.  Smiling and beaming.  Really good, incredible, earth-shatteringly, mind-blowingly, game-changing, _amazing_ sex with Natasha tended to do that to him.

The situation was definitely secured.  No self-fulfilling prophecies here.  Just pure, unadulterated, _perfectly sweet_ satisfaction.  And happiness.  Clint was right; nothing else mattered if they had that.

They went out later.  Errands to run and the like.  Dropping a bunch of bills at the post office, going to the bank to get money, eventually heading back to the Triskelion.  He waited outside for her as she did what she needed, and she was quick about it, heading to her office to grab mission reports that required completing, stopping at his to do the same for him.  And, last but not least, going down to the armory.

It was quiet given it was the height of the weekend.  The building was absolutely dead.  Of course, SHIELD was always staffed.  The command center was constantly manned, and there were soldiers and other unfortunate folk working today and roaming about.  It was also fairly common knowledge that Fury never took a day off, so in all likelihood he was up at the tower’s pinnacle, managing his staff and the world with that eye of his that saw everything and that mind of his that was so sharp and that _heart_ of his that always knew the right course (what would have happened if he hadn’t set her back on hers, she wondered?).  Down here, though, in the bowels of the building where the armory and supply centers were, it was silent as a tomb.  Not a soul.  She walked down the fire escape stairs, the handcuffs in hand, hoping to slip them back without anyone noticing.

Apparently that wasn’t in the cards.  She heard the echo of footsteps not her own, but it was too late to turn around and run.  As she turned on the last landing to take the final flight of steps, she saw someone else coming in.  _You’ve got to be kidding me.  Of all the people…_

It was Rumlow.  He caught sight of her instantly, and his dark scowl simultaneously managed to tighten further in anger and open itself with the opportunity for revenge.  “Romanoff,” he greeted tightly.

Natasha had slowed but she picked up her pace and continued on her way.  “Agent Rumlow.”

He forced a smile.  “Having a nice weekend?”

 _Yes._   _Very yes._ “Decent.  You?”

He glared at her, and all pretenses of being pleasant disappeared in a blink.  “Not really.”

She stopped in front of him at the bottom of the steps.  “Oh, no.  Why’s that?  Not enough things to fight or fuck to spend all that pent up energy?”  The venom dripped from her falsely sweet tone, and she smiled at him.

His eyes flashed.  “Actually, the quartermaster’s been up my ass all weekend because one of the set of super cuffs went missing after the mission.”  Natasha stopped immediately, holding tighter to her bag where she’d stashed them.  “He seems to think it’s my fault, since it was the pair assigned to me.  Which is absolute bullshit.  And they want them back _now_ since they’re prototypes.  So, no, I’ve spent the weekend tearing apart everywhere we’ve been looking for the fucking things!”

“Sadness,” she quipped.  “I’d help, but I really have better things to do.”

He grabbed her arm as she tried to pass.  “You know, I know how to get information when I need to.  Word is you were here yesterday evening.”

She played it cool.  She was Black Widow.  She knew her friend wouldn’t turn, not for Rumlow or anyone on his team.  This pissant of a man wasn’t going to play her or threaten or manipulate her.  Not now.  “Word is?”

“Can’t prove it,” he snapped, tightening his grip on her arm, “but something tells me you took them.”

“Huh.  Interesting theory.”

He smirked humorlessly, still crowding her.  And now that they were alone, he wasn’t too shy about being lascivious as he looked up and down her body.  “Is, isn’t it?”

“Would you like some proof?”

His face fractured in confusion.  “Huh?”

She moved so fast, much faster than he could, reaching into her bag for the cuffs as she snatched his arm and whirled him around.  Driving him into the railing, her knee went into his spine, enough to pain and immobilize but not damage.  She snapped the cuff around one wrist with one quick motion, slipped the chain around the metal railing, and attached the other to his other hand.

It all happened in a blink and a breath.  By the time he realized what she’d done, she’d already let him go and backed off, arms folded over her blouse, lips twisted in a smug smirk.  “Hey, what the hell?  _What the hell?_ ” he sputtered.  He turned around and yanked and yanked as hard as he could on the cuffs, but of course they wouldn’t give.  They’d been made to hold someone a lot stronger and better than him.

She couldn’t help herself, couldn’t contain the rush of power and satisfaction at seeing him struggle uselessly.  “Oh, look.  You found them.  Mission accomplished.”

“You…  You – goddamn it!  Get me out!”

She came closer again, swaying her hips just so and plying _every_ bit of how much he lusted after her against him.  “You know what?”  His frantic efforts stilled as she pressed close.  “I do like a man all tied up.”  She leaned into him, feeling him go rigid with sudden arousal, and she reached right into his jeans pocket.  His eyes darkened as she drifted up to his jawline, her breath splaying across his unshaven face.  Right into his ear, she whispered, “But you’re not the right man.”  She grabbed his phone, pulled it out, and turned away.

Enraged, he struggled harder.  She turned his phone off and set it on the other side of the landing on the lowest step, way out of his reach.  No chance of calling for help.  “I think it might be nice for you to spend the night here.  Alone.  You should take some time to think about how you treat people.”

His muscles bulged obscenely as he pulled and pulled.  He wasn’t going anywhere.  “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!”

“Repent.  You might feel better if you did.”

“Fuck you!”  She gave a tight smile, and turned to head back up the stairs.  Rumlow flailed behind her.  The sound of his desperate grunting and the handcuffs clanking and rattling echoed through the stairwell.  “Wait, wait, wait!  Natasha.  Come on, Natasha.  Don’t leave me here like this.  Come on.  I’m sorry.  I shouldn’t have–”

“Shouldn’t have what?”  She turned around and skewered him with a fiery glare.  He absolutely _shriveled_ under the weight of it.  “Shouldn’t have lied about me?  Shouldn’t have torn me down in front of the team?  Shouldn’t have made me feel like shit?”  There were no holds barred now.  She was Black Widow, and she had her prey in her web.  She wanted to destroy him.  As it was, she’d have to settle for a warning and a hell of a lesson.  “Don’t fuck with me.  Not ever again.  Understand?”

He nodded frantically, eyes wide.  “I do.  And I’m sorry.  It was all just for fun, you know?  I didn’t mean anything by it!”  _Sure, you didn’t._   “Just please don’t leave me here like this!”

“Maybe you’ll get lucky and someone’ll come by this way.”  She smiled sweetly.  “I doubt it, though.  Not until tomorrow morning.”

“No!”  His scream echoed through the stairwell.  She turned again and climbed the steps, loving every second of his whining and crying and panic-fueled fighting.  “No, Natasha!  Come on!  Don’t leave me here!  Don’t!”

At the top of the flight, she turned once more.  “Oh, you were right about something, though.  Steve doesn’t need me.”  Rumlow stopped, soaked in sweat, wide-eyed and horrified and completely _defeated._   “He _wants_ me.  There’s a big difference.”  She smiled.  “Enjoy the rest of your weekend, Brock.”

_“No!”_

She couldn’t hear the rest of his crying because she exited the stairs on the next floor and took the elevator the rest of the way up.

Outside, Steve was waiting with his bike where she’d left him.  The sun was bright, hitting his hair, making his eyes again so beautifully blue.  He was leaning against the Harley, arms folded over his chest.  “Took a while,” he commented as she approached.

She gave him a long kiss, breathless, trembling just a little from the thrill of it all.  “Sorry.  Had to handle some trash.”

His brow furrowed in confusion, but he didn’t say anything about it.  Sliding his Aviators on, he climbed onto his bike.  “Get everything?”

“Yep.”  She slid the strap of her bag around her and climbed up behind him.  “All set.”

“Still think we should have kept them,” he murmured, looking over his shoulder with a devious grin.  “You know, for future use.”

She wrapped her arms around his middle, a little lower and closer the crotch of his jeans than was strictly necessary.  “Misappropriation of SHIELD resources, babe,” she said into his ear, nipping just a little.  He laughed.  “Besides, you could always ask Stark for another pair.  He made them, after all.”

His chuckling turned incredulous, but, surprising her, he didn’t blush or hide his face or even dismiss it.  “Suppose I could.”  He leaned back, kissing her more, before starting his bike and revving up its engine until it was purring with anticipation.  “Where to?”

She thought about it.  The afternoon was bright, beautiful, the sky blue and the sun warm and cheery, and the possibilities were really endless.  “Ice cream?” she offered.

“Mint chocolate chip?”

“Is there any other kind?”

“Nope.”

And off they went on a perfect day, certain that there was nothing better than this.

**THE END**

**Author's Note:**

> Another amazing artwork by the lovely [vbprodz](http://vbprodz.tumblr.com)! Thank you so much!
> 
> And [this](http://sleepygrimm.tumblr.com/post/143784517150/dedicated-to-thegraytigress-side-effectssexy) awesome photoset by sleepygrimm!


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